Egypt has received about 3.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine provided by Moderna via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative. Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and Acting Minister of Health, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, said the Moderna vaccine has been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization and the Egyptian Drug Authority. The vaccine will be subject to analysis before rollout. Egypt was able in a short time to secure all types of the anti-COVID vaccines; Sinovac, Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Sputnik, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna. Globally, Pfizer announced the development of a new drug to treat the coronavirus, (oral pills), and said that it reduces the risk of death and hospital admission rates by 89%, and the company also plans to submit the results of its experiments to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval. Pfizer joined the race to introduce the first easy-to-use drug against the virus in the US market. The announcement by Pfizer appeared one day after Britain announced that it had granted a licence to use a drug developed by Merck to treat COVID-19.
