Egypt will receive a second batch, composed of 300,000 doses, of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine on Thursday, raising the total number of doses that the country has received to 700,000 doses, an informed source from the health ministry told Al-Ahram.

Minister of Health Hala Zayed already announced in early March that Egypt will be receiving a batch of 300,000 doses of Sinopharm as a gift, but without mentioning the exact date of arrival.

The new batch will be a part of the vaccination campaign for the most vulnerable groups taking place in 40 centres nationwide that include the elderly and those who suffer from chronic diseases.

On 28 February, Egypt announced the launch of a website for reserving vaccine doses, available for those who are above the age of 18, however, priority is given to citizens above 65 and patients with chronic diseases.

Egypt was the first African country to receive the Sinopharm vaccine in December, when they recieved 50,000 doses from the United Arab Emirates as a gift and the same number of doses from the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, which is manufactured in India, from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) in January.

In the third week of February, Egypt also received the first batch of 300,000 doses of Sinopharm from China.

Zayed stated the country is expected to receive 40 million doses from GAVI, distributed across the four quarters of the year.