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The most populous country in the Arab world plans to buy 40 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, says the health minister.
Egypt has granted regulatory approval for the use of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, and the inoculation campaign is expected to start in late January, the health minister said.
“The Egyptian pharmaceutical authority approved the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine on Saturday,” Hala Zayed told local channel MBC Masr.
Zayed said the first batch of the vaccine was delivered in December, and more doses are expected this month.
“The second shipment of this vaccine should arrive in the second or third week of January, and as soon as it arrives, we will begin vaccinations,” said the minister.
Each batch of vaccine consists of 50,000 doses. Zayed said Egypt plans to buy 40 million doses of the Sinopharm jab.
The Ministry of Health has announced that the first group to receive the vaccine will be the country’s medical workers.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world with about 100 million inhabitants, has recorded more than 140,000 cases of the COVID-19 disease, including 7,800 deaths.
After a brief hiatus, the number of infections rose dramatically in late 2020, from about 100 new confirmed cases a day in October to about 1,400 daily cases today.
Sinopharm announced Wednesday that one of its vaccines, to be distributed in China, was 79 percent effective.
The efficacy of the jab is less than that of the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both with an effectiveness greater than 90 percent.
Another jab developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has been shown to be 70 percent effective.
Egypt will also receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the third or fourth week of January, according to Zayed, adding that a contract “was being finalized.”
Negotiations with Pfizer “are also underway,” he added.
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