Egypt’s first Johnson & Johnson vaccine shipment is arriving today, presidential health advisor Mohamed Tag Eldin said on DMC (watch, runtime: 14:26).

How many shots are we getting? The ministry hasn’t specified how many doses of the vaccine will be included in the first shipment.

And where are they coming from? Again, the ministry hasn’t provided any details on this since announcing last Wednesday that they would arrive this week. The African Union is providing us with 25 mn doses of the single-shot vaccine while the government reportedly placed an order directly with the company earlier this year for 4 mn doses, though these are not expected to arrive until the fourth quarter.

Remember though: These shots are not exclusively for travelers. Though the ministry suggested just last month that J&J jabs would be allocated specifically to people wanting to travel, a member of the government’s covid-19 committee told us last week that they will be distributed to the general public and not reserved for travellers.

We’re also due to receive the final 1.9 mn doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca allocated under the Gavi / Covax program this week. Both shipments have been delayed several times, and were most recently due to arrive in July, with the J&J batch coming through the African Union.

Egypt yesterday received a 175k jab shipment of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, samples of which were sent to the Egyptian Drug Authority’s (EDA) labs for analysis ahead of their distribution to vaccination centers nationwide, unnamed senior health officials told Youm7. Egypt had received its first 210k batch of Sputnik in June under an agreement with Russia to deliver 10 mn jabs.

GOOD NEWS FOR TRAVELERS- Unvaccinated travelers should be able to receive their first shots within 72 hours of registering for a jab, state vaccine-maker Vacsera’s boss Moustafa Mohamady told Al Masry Al Youm. If you’re planning non-essential international travel to any country mandating vaccination for entry and haven’t had your first dose, you can fast-track your turn for a covid-19 vaccination appointment by ticking the “traveller” box when registering online through the Health Ministry’s website.

You should be given a vaccine appointment date within three days of registering at one of the 126 dedicated centers nationwide, where vaccinated individuals can also issue official, QR-code bearing vaccination certificates for EGP 100 for Egyptian citizens, and USD 10 for non-Egyptians. The ministry is also working on an Egypt Health Passport app that will allow individuals to display their vaccination status on their mobile phones.

The Health Ministry reported 61 new covid-19 infections yesterday, up from 57 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 284,641 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 4 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 16,566.

We’ve seen the case count rise steadily for the past 12 days now: According to our in-house covid tracker, the number of new reported covid-19 infections has been inching up since 27 July, with the exception of a brief drop on 5 August.

It just got even more expensive for UK tourists to visit Egypt: The UK government has hiked quarantine fees for people entering the country from “red list” countries in a bid to deter travelers to countries where the UK government believes there is a high risk of infection From 12 August, it will now cost a single adult coming from Egypt and other countries on the UK’s “red list” GBP 2,285 to stay in quarantine in a government mandated hotel for 10 days, up from GBP 1,750 previously. The fee for additional adults will more than double to GBP 1,430.

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