Egypt is due to receive 1.9 million doses of AstraZenca vaccine within days, a new batch of a wider package comprising 40 million doses agreed upon with the global COVAX facility by the end of last year, the country's Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced on Tuesday. Egypt has so far received a total of 3.3 million of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca, 2.2 million doses of which have come under the agreement with the COVAX, which aims to secure doses flowing into all countries. Cairo also has been supplied with a total of 3 million Chinese Sinopharm jabs, over the past six months, along with 500,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine, another China-made vaccine. The health minister's remarks were made after a meeting in Geneva with Aurélia Nguyen, the managing director of the Office of the COVAX Facility. Zayed said, during the meeting, Egypt is well prepared to cooperate with the COVAX and other vaccines manufacturers to help produce the doses via the Egyptian firms to speed up the supply of these vaccines the world over. Egypt is currently manufacturing 2 million doses of Sinovac coronavirus vaccine through the production lines of the country's drugmaker VACSERA as part of a wider deal with the Chinese company to produce a total of 40 million doses by the end of 2021 in Egypt. The local production of the Sinovac vaccine, approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for emergency use on 1 June and by the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) in April, comes within Egypt's aim to become a manufacturing vaccine hub for Africa after meeting local needs. Egypt is also in talks to locally manufacture the British AstraZeneca vaccine, according to previous statements by Health Minister Hala Zayed. Minister Zayed is on a visit to the Swiss capital to discuss means of enhancing cooperation in the fields of health with a number of international organisations.
