A citizen taking Coronavirus Vaccine. Photo courtesy of Egyptian Health Ministry Facebook page.
Egypt started its coronavirus vaccination campaign in January this year by vaccinating medical workers at quarantine hospitals, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals.
In his report on the latest pandemic updates in Egypt during the weekly Cabinet meeting — which was held for the first time in the New Administrative Capital — Abdel-Ghaffar mentioned that an average of 350 thousand vaccines are administered daily.
The minister stated that there are currently more than 62 million vaccine doses available for use.
Egypt has imported 116.8 million doses of the Sinopharm, Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, according to the minister.
The country has also been locally producing the Chinese Sinovac vaccine.
The Egyptian government has set a goal to fully vaccinate 40 million people by the end of 2021.
In a phone interview with Sada El-Balad TV channel on Tuesday, Presidential Adviser for Health Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din said that the fourth wave has not reached its peak yet, however, he assured that the situation in Egypt is under control.
The country has, as of Wednesday, detected 377,960 coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, including 21,500 deaths and 314,452 recoveries.
On 4 December, the ministry announced that three travellers tested positive for the Omicron variant upon arriving in Cairo International Airport and then promptly sent to quarantine.
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