Cairo International Airport received on Saturday, 5 February 2022, a shipment of 338,800 doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine donated by Germany. (Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population)
The shipment is set to be tested at the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) laboratories before distribution to vaccination centres across the country, Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, the acting health minister said.
Egypt is battling "a remarkable" spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths, due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant.
The country continues to push ahead with efforts to expand its campaign to vaccinate 70 percent of the population by the second half of 2022.
Egypt has administered a total of 37.8 million first vaccine doses and 26.9 million second doses since campaign began in January of 2021, according to the health ministry’s daily statistics.
As many as 628,111 booster shots have been administered in recent weeks as well, bringing the total number of doses administered since the start of the campaign to 65.4 million.
On 28 January, Egypt surpassed 2,000 new cases per day for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, with the daily infection tally hitting record-highs for eight consecutive days.
Also, it recorded 52 deaths on Wednesday, which is the highest number of daily coronavirus deaths since 8 December, when 56 deaths were recorded.
Egypt is expected to witness a decline in infections in two to three weeks, Health Ministry Spokesman Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar said in remarks to the media.
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