According to an official statement by the health ministry, acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said the vaccines have been received at Cairo International Airport in three batches on Thursday and Friday. 

The vaccines have been delivered under the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), an international initiative that seeks to ensure equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines in cooperation with the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), with support of UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO)|. 

The new batches will be tested in the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) laboratories before distribution to the country’s vaccination centers nationwide. 

Abdel Ghaffar said Egypt has been able to secure all available and World Health Organization (WHO) vaccines, including Chinese Sinovac and Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Sputnik, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer under the state’s plan to expand and diversify accessible vaccines. 

The British Embassy in Cairo said on Saturday that the package donated by the UK is one of its largest bilateral donations of vaccines through COVAX.

Egypt has so far received over 134 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including raw material needed to manufacture vaccines at its state-owned vaccine maker Vacsera. 

It has administered total of 37,146,343 first vaccine doses and 25,675,923 second vaccine doses.

A total of 612,311 booster shots have been injected in recent weeks, bringing the total number of coronavirus vaccines administered to the population since the start of the mass vaccination campaign in January 2021 to 63,434,577 jabs.