Egypt received on Monday 500,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine, the first shipment of the Chinese immunity booster shot against coronavirus, pushing the country's total deliveries of all vaccines made by the East Asian country to some 4 million shots.

Cairo has been supplied with a total of 3 million Sinopharm jabs, another China-made vaccine, over the past six months, along with over 3 million doses of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine.

Further shots of the three vaccines, alongside others, are due to be delivered to the country shortly, as the Egyptian government targets vaccinating 40 percent of the population towards the end of the current year.

With the shots set to be ready for public use within the following six weeks, Egypt is due by 15 June to manufacture 2 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, which was authorised for emergency use by the World Health Organisation on Tuesday.

In May, 1,400 litres of Sinovac raw materials were sent to Egypt to secure the production of next week's target, which will be carried out by VACSERA as part of a wider deal to produce a total of 40 million doses to cover the country’s vaccination needs and to export doses to Africa.

An additional shipment of 3,000 litres of Sinovac raw materials is set to be delivered as well late this month to produce 4.2 million doses, according to Health Minister Hala Zayed.

The Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) has granted in April the emergency use for the Sinovac vaccine, which will be administered 3 weeks apart.

The vaccine, Heath Minister Spokesman Khaled Megahed said, has been proven to be 91 percent effective against the deadly virus among general categories as per the clinical trials conducted in seven countries: Brazil, Chile, Turkey, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Philippines.

China on Friday approved the emergency use of Sinovac in people aged between three and 17 years.

At least two million have been vaccinated against the deadly virus in Egypt.

The EDA, the country's medicine regulatory body, has approved the emergency use of five vaccines: Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, CoronaVac, and Covishield - AstraZeneca.