We have another 550k Astra doses, courtesy of France
Egypt received 546k AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the French government under the Covax initiative, Health Minister Hala Zayed announced yesterday. The shipment arrived in two batches, the first on Friday and the second on Saturday, ministry spokesperson Khaled Megahed said.
Egypt will get its first batch of 1.6 mn Pfizer doses on 24 September, Megahed said on El Hekaya (watch, runtime: 1:41) on Friday night. We’re also expecting to receive around 3.5-4 mn doses of AstraZeneca this week from France, Germany, Greece and Poland.
The government is expecting to obtain 17 mn additional doses this month, which includes several international shipments as well local Sinovac, which is currently being produced at a rate of 300k doses a day.
The Health Ministry reported 653 new covid-19 infections yesterday, up from 637 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 296,929 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 19 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 16,970.
US set to purchase and donate another 500 mn covid-19 vaccines: The Biden administration is in negotiations with Pfizer to buy another 500 mn vaccines for global donation, after donating 500 mn to international vaccine program Covax in August, Bloomberg reports. The agreement is expected to be finalized in the coming days, just ahead of an international covid-19 summit Biden has called for on the sidelines of the upcoming UN General Assembly.
Egypt is one of the countries that is set to receive donated vaccines from the US: The White House said in June that we would receive a portion of 14 mn doses to be distributed among around 30 other priority countries, but we haven’t heard anything about these vaccines since.