Egypt's Health Minister Hala Zayed announced on Monday that the government will soon start vaccinating all prisoners in Egyptian prisons against COVID-19 across the country soon. In a meeting headed by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to follow up on the situation of the coronavirus in Egypt, Zayed also revealed that the health ministry made an agreement with the chairman of the Federation of Egyptian Industries to allocate a number of centres to become vaccination points for workers in industrial complexes across the country. She also added there was a plan to send vehicles as vaccinations points near pension disbursement centres near banks or post offices in order to target senior citizens. Zayed stated that within days, the pharmaceutical raw material needed to manufacture 2 million doses of the Sinovac coronavirus vaccine in Egypt, in addition to 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, will arrive in Cairo. In early June, Egypt will receive a new shipment of 1.9 million doses of an unspecified vaccine from COVAX in addition to 2 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, the minister said during the meeting. Last week, Egypt received 1.7 million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine from COVAX in addition to 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine. During the meeting, Zayed revealed that there were plans to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine in Egypt in the upcoming period in Vacsera factories in October. Madbouly announced during the meeting that according to the directive of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the Tahya Misr Fund was delegated to collect contributions and donations from banks and companies in order to acquire vaccines from abroad. He also revealed the government allocated nearly EGP 2 billion to the fund to acquire coronavirus vaccines.
