The Japanese embassy in Cairo said in a statement that the shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses produced in Japan will be sent to Egypt through the COVAX initiative as soon as the logistic preparations are completed.

The statement added the shipment comes as part of the friendship between Egypt and Japan as well as considering the situation of coronavirus in the country.

The shipment to Egypt will be Japan’s first to Africa under the COVAX initiative.

The Japanese embassy also revealed that Tokyo has previously supported Egypt during the pandemic, including with more than $250 million for Japanese medical appliances, to support research in the Egyptian Japanese University for Science and Technology (E-JUST) and to support the budget to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.

Japan has also made $1 billion in contributions to the COVAX initiative, the statement added.

AstraZeneca is one type of coronavirus vaccine Egypt is using in its mass vaccination campaign along with Sputnik V, Sinopharm, Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac, Pfizer and Moderna across nearly 1,000 fixed vaccination centres nationwide.

Egypt has so far partially vaccinated 27.4 million citizens against the coronavirus and fully inoculated 14.4 million others according to the latest statements of acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffer on Wednesday.