The World Health Organisation has placed Egypt at the lower level in terms of the risk of the coronavirus pandemic spread, Health Minister Hala Zayed said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The minister cited the organisation's six-level categories of the epidemiological position and the risk of spreading the virus worldwide. 

Egypt reported relatively few coronavirus infections over the past month after passing the peak of a third wave of the pandemic.

So far, the country has reported 283,320 cases and 16,412 since the initial outbreak in February last year.

During the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Zayed said Egypt received 500,000 jabs of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine last week and another 1 million doses will be available by the end of next week.

Zayed said 700,000 vaccine doses will be provided to Egypt through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) as well as another 250,000 AstraZeneca doses.

Last week, the WHO praised Egypt for producing the first 1 million Sinovac vaccine doses and for the country’s plan to vaccinate 40 million citizens against the virus by the end of the year.

On Sunday, health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said Egypt will receive 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of the week, noting that these doses will be allocated for travel purposes only.