The ministry also recorded 62 coronavirus-related fatalities, bringing the total tally of deaths to 23,694, according to the ministry’s daily report.

The report added that the total number of recoveries increased to 398,761 after 1,543 patients were discharged from hospitals nationwide in the past 24 hours.

Egypt is currently witnessing a drop in cases and deaths in comparison to the past six weeks, Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, the acting health minister, said on Wednesday, citing the results of COVID-19 tests performed — including those conducted for travel purposes — at public and private laboratories.

On Friday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the general director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), announced in an event hosted in Brussels during the European Union – African Union Summit that the first African countries to receive technology from an European hub to produce their own mRNA vaccine would be Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Tedros said the transfer would be carried out with help from the EU, Germany, Canada, France, Norway, and Belgium.

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who attended the event, stressed that the mRNA technology transfer hub is in line with the country’s existing efforts to produce vaccines and develop a medical infrastructure capable of ensuring the continuing availability of vaccines in Egypt and across Africa.

Egypt has been producing the Chinese Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine since summer 2021 at its VACSERA factory for domestic use as well as for export to Africa and neighbouring countries.

The Egyptian private sector company Minapharm also signed an agreement in 2021 with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to locally produce Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

In November 2021, Egypt started clinical trials for its own home-made vaccine, COVI-VAX, which is expected to run from six to nine months.