Egypt received 1st batch of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine jabs
from India in the fight against COVID-19
Egypt
on Sunday received a first batch of 50,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca's COVID-19
vaccines from India. The vaccine shipment arrived in Cairo on January 31 on an
Emirates Airlines flight from India via Dubai after release procedures were
finalized by relevant authorities.
The
Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) had previously approved the emergency use of two
COVID-19 vaccines - one developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and the other by
Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm. According to Presidential adviser for
health affairs Mohammed Awad Tag El-Din, Egypt will be receiving COVID-19 vaccines
from different sources.
“We
are monitoring the progress in scientific research on vaccines produced
worldwide, and Egypt will make sure that it diversifies its sources of
vaccines,” Tag El-Din had said during a press conference in December 2020.
In
addition to Oxford-AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccines, Egypt received 50,000 doses
of the Sinopharm vaccine developed by China and the UAE in December 2020.
Egypt
launched its nationwide COVID-19 immunization programme last week by
vaccinating medical staff of a hospital in the northeastern province of
Ismailia using the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine. Health Minister Hala
Zayed affirmed that the vaccination will be provided to all health workers for
free as part of the mass drive.
Arab
world’s most populous country, Egypt is going to install more than 35 medical
centers in the coming weeks to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to its
population of over 100 million people. The Health Ministry has called on the
citizens to register online to receive the vaccination. As of now, over 3,000
people have registered online to receive the vaccine jab.
Hala
Zayed has noted that the vaccination programme will initially inoculate the
medical staff of public hospitals in Egypt, the armed forces and the police. As
per the vaccination programme, priority will be given to medical personnel
treating COVID-19 patients, followed by healthcare workers dealing with other
patients, the elderly population, those with chronic diseases, and the rest of
the citizens.
A
total of 100 million vaccine doses will be arriving in Egypt from Chinese,
Russian and British drug manufacturers. Cairo will also receive about 40
million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as part of the COVAX Facility
aimed at vaccinating 20 percent of its population.
“Within
two or three weeks maximum there will be the beginning of the influx of GAVI
vaccines. It will give us the urgent needs during the first quarter,” Hala
Zayed said in a recent briefing.
Reportedly, more than 1,300 medical workers in Coronavirus isolation hospitals have been vaccinated against the disease so far.
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