Egypt has received a new batch of 1.766 million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses through the global COVAX initiative, its health ministry announced late on Friday. This is third shipment after the arrival of the first and second batches delivered by COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX). This batch will provide an important boost to Egypt's on-going COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Egypt has scaled up its vaccination rates in the past months, inaugurating many vaccination centres across nationwide. These centres have the capacity to vaccinate thousands of people per day. Egypt is among the few countries where vaccination is offered not only to Egyptians, but to all people in Egypt, including refugees and migrants. "We need to reach 70 percent of the population vaccinated as a critical milestone to halt the pandemic." Naeema Al Gasseer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative in Egypt, said. "We as WHO with our partners including civil society call for equity of vaccine allocation leaving no one behind, fully supporting the government of Egypt's efforts for vaccine availability and production to cover all the people living in Egypt and beyond." "This delivery is important for Egypt as we increase momentum for the deployment of the vaccine nationwide, accompanied by an increase in demand from people in Egypt which is very encouraging.", said Jeremy Hopkins, UNICEF Representative in Egypt. COVAX is co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), working in partnership with UNICEF as well as the World Bank, civil society organisations, manufacturers, and others. COVAX has so far shipped more than 188 million COVID-19 vaccines to 138 participants worldwide.
