Egypt’s Ministry of Emigration and Expatriates Affairs called on Egyptians wishing to travel for work, study or medical purposes to register for vaccines approved by the countries they wish to travel to in case they had received a non-approved vaccine by their destination countries, a statement said on Thursday.

In the statement, Minister Nabila Makram urged these citizens to register through the following link: https://forms.gle/8cPmRNRKNnheWUQb7

The registration process will let the Ministry of Health acquire all the data needed to take necessary action towards the travellers and provide them with the appropriate vaccine approved by the countries they are travelling to, the statement noted.

Makram stated that this coordination between her ministry and the health ministry came after receiving many appeals from travelers who had received a vaccine that is not approved by certain countries.

Given that various countries around the world have not yet approved the Chinese vaccines — even though they have been approved by the World Health Organisation — many Egyptians have encountered problems while preparing to travel to specific countries after being inoculated by the Chinese vaccines. Among these countries are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The immigration ministry’s operations room has already received a large number of registration forms and that the first batch of completed forms has been sent to the health ministry after being revised, the statement said.

Egyptian citizens working in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia topped the list of registrants for re-vaccination, Makram indicated.

The minister also called on the registrants who have not submitted all the required data to re-register for a second time and to attach the requested documents so that they can receive the vaccine.

Egypt has imported millions of doses of vaccines of since starting its campaign early this year including the WHO-approved British AstraZeneca vaccine, Johnson & Johnson, the Chinese Sinopharm, and the Russian Sputnik V — which has not been approved by the WHO.

As many as 6,477,535 vaccine doses have been administered in Egypt through 16 August, according to the WHO.

Egypt has recently seen a slight but steady increase in the daily reported cases and is approaching the fourth wave of coronavirus.

On Wednesday, Egypt reported 203 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day rise since 1 July, bringing the total infection tally officially to 289,938 since the outbreak began in February 2020.