Egypt opens automated vaccine storage complex with capacity of up to 150 million doses annually

CAIRO – 24 September 2022: Egypt’s Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar inaugurated on Saturday an automated vaccine storage complex in Giza’s Sixth of October City with a capacity ranging from 100 to 150 million doses per year.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Health, the complex, which belongs to Egypt’s Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA), was constructed in cooperation with the Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac over 3,180 square meters.

“This is a contribution from the Chinese company in increasing the storage capacities of vaccines in Egypt so that the company (VACSERA) becomes a regional center for the manufacture and storage of vaccines in the African continent,” Abdel Ghaffar said.

 

The government has outlined a comprehensive plan for developing VACSERA as part of the country’s strategy to make Egypt a regional hub for manufacturing vaccines and meet the African continent’s needs of vaccines, Abdel Ghaffar said.

The minister also witnessed the signing of receiving 10 million doses of coronavirus vaccine as part of 60 million doses gifted by China to Egypt.

Egypt now has stockpiles of coronavirus vaccines that are enough to meet the country’s needs till 2023, he added.

 

Abdel Ghaffar also celebrated more than a year and a half of partnership between VACSERA and China’s biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech Ltd, which helped Egypt produce 40 million Sinovac coronavirus vaccine doses.

Egypt has manufactured tens of millions of Sinocav/VACSERA vaccine after the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) has permitted the emergency use of the first locally-manufactured vaccine against coronavirus in August last year.

The manufacturing of the Sinovac coronavirus doses in Egypt is part of an agreement that VACSERA signed with the Chinese biopharmaceutical company, aiming initially to produce 40 million doses of the locally-made vaccine by the end of 2021.

Egypt has seen a drop in coronavirus cases and deaths over the past months. Last week, Presidential Advisor for Health Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag El Din said COVID-19 deaths in the country fell to almost zero.

He noted that the situation had become very reassuring, and the infections had become few. He rather explained during televised statements that the latest sixth wave of coronavirus in Egypt was “very weak”.