Egypt's health ministry reported 689 new coronavirus cases on Monday, bringing the total infection tally to 200,739 since the outbreak began in last year. The health ministry also reported 32 new deaths, raising the total number of deaths from the virus to 11,914. The statement said that 455 patients have been discharged during the last 24 hours after recovering from the virus, resulting in the total number of recoveries to reach 153,630. Egypt has been carrying out a mass vaccination campaign against the contagion, allowing medical staffers, the elderly and patients with chronic diseases, to register online via a designated website to receive the doses. The campaign, which kicked off in February, came after the ministry concluded the vaccination of medical workers at coronavirus isolation and triage hospitals almost a month earlier. The campaign relies on the Chinese Sinopharm and the British-Swedish Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, both of which were granted emergency use authorisation by authorities earlier this year. The country has obtained 700,000 doses of the two vaccines. The Sinopharm's vaccine is administered, in two doses, three weeks apart, while the second dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine is given three months after receiving the first one. Egypt is expecting millions of AstraZeneca doses by the end of March and during the coming two months as it seeks to expand its vaccination rollout to include more categories, especially workers in the tourism and banking fields to guarantee stability in the economic sector.
