Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi received his first shot of the coronavirus vaccine on Sunday "as part of Egypt's national campaign to vaccinate citizens," the presidency said in a statement. The national vaccination campaign started in January with the administering of the vaccine to medical staff. In March, the health ministry expanded the campaign to the elderly and those with chronic diseases. The government administers the Chinese Sinopharm and the Indian-British AstraZeneca vaccines to inoculate citizens. Those seeking inoculation can register online via the website http://www.egcovac.mohp.gov.eg/ or at the nearest site designated as a coronavirus vaccination center. According to the latest figures released by health ministry last week, a total of 660,000 Egyptians have been vaccinated, and more than 1.5 million people have registered for vaccination since the ministry launched its website http://www.egcovac.mohp.gov.eg/ in March. The country has received a total of 1.5 million doses of both vaccines. In an attempt to achieve Egypt's goal of self-sufficiency and later to export to African countries, an agreement was signed Thursday between Minapharm pharmaceutical company and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to manufacture over 40 million doses annually of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Cairo. That came a day after another agreement under which Egypt's VACSERA will be allowed to produce 40 to 60 million doses this year of China's Sinovac vaccine. According to Egypt's Health Minister Hala Zayed, the first five million doses of Sinovac vaccine will be locally produced within the next two months. Egypt – which currently witnesses its third wave of pandemic – has so far reported 221,570 infections, including 166,457 recoveries and 12,998 deaths.
