The ministry also reported 34 new deaths in the past 24 hours nationwide, bringing the total fatalities nationwide to 22,097.

The statement added that 893 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovering from the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries to 331,607.

Egypt received on Thursday one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine offered by Argentina, the health ministry said.

This falls within the framework of marking the 75th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties between Egypt and Argentina.

A total of 800,000 AstraZeneca doses also arrived in Egypt on Wednesday provided by Portugal within the framework of the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

This raises the total coronavirus vaccine doses delivered by Portugal to Egypt to around 1.2 million, Egypt’s Ambassador to Portugal Wael El-Naggar said.

Portugal sent 360,000 vaccine doses to Egypt in mid-December through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), El-Naggar added.

Egypt has administered a total of 58,836,189 vaccine doses as of 7 January, according to the latest update by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Earlier this month, acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said Egypt has received 122.2 million doses.

In December, Egypt has started sending text notifications to fully vaccinated individuals detailing appointment slots for booster shots of the coronavirus vaccine.