A nurse holds a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at al-Barsha Health Centre in the Gulf Emirate of Dubai on December 24, 2020. AFP
Egypt’s Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said on Thursday that the ministry had already signed contracts to buy 20 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech and 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
In a press conference in Cairo, Maait stated that the ministry reserved the doses even before its final price is determined because the Egyptian citizen’s health is the priority.
The minister said that the government has already allocated EGP 100 billion to face the coronavirus crisis and that they are ready to double this allocation if needed.
“EGP 3.6 billion were disbursed to support irregular employment and the real estate tax on tourist facilities has been dropped until April 30th” he added.
Last week, Egypt received the first batch of China’s Sinopharm vaccine.
On Wednesday, Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced that the country is currently in the second wave of coronavirus.
Egypt has recorded so far 127,972 cases of coronavirus including 7209 fatalities and 107,961 recoveries.
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