Egypt's Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed discussed, on Tuesday, a plan to secure Johnson & Johnson vaccine supply through the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT). The plan comes in cooperation with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), within the state's plan to diversify and expand the provision of anti-COVID-19 vaccines. In a meeting on Tuesday with Bahaa El Din Zeidan, head of the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement (UPA), and Chairperson of the Afreximbank, Benedict Orama, Zayed praised UPA for its contribution to managing the pandemic crisis. She also thanked the Afreximbank and AVAT for helping supply the first batch of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which amounted to 261,600 doses, to Egypt on Monday. More batches of the vaccine will arrive successively in Egypt. The second batch is expected to reach 700,000 doses. The meeting dealt with the importance of benefiting from the production capacity of African countries in covering the continent's needs for vaccines, as the minister confirmed Egypt's readiness to meet the needs of African countries for coronavirus vaccines through the national production of vaccines in factories of the Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA), after meeting the local demand. She also confirmed the readiness of VACSERA factories to manufacture various types of coronavirus vaccines and distribute them to African countries through AVAT, with the aim of localizing the vaccine industry in Africa. Moreover, the meeting also dealt with Egypt's readiness to meet the needs of African countries for medicines for malaria, AIDS, Ebola and others.
