VACCINE UPDATE- Almost 40% of Egyptians aged over 18 are now fully vaccinated, interim health minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said in a presser yesterday, according to Youm7. Some 23.6 mn people have now received two shots of a covid-19 vaccine, while another 12.8 mn have received their first dose.

The Madbouly government has done a very solid job managing the rollout of vaccines — with plenty of help from our friends in the international community, who have been generous with donations of jabs. Remember that a year ago today, we still had no clarity on when Egypt’s vaccination program would launch, with then-Health Minister Hala Zayed having said in mid-January that Egypt was still hoping to start the vaccine rollout in March.

Some 500k booster shots have so far been handed to priority individuals, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said yesterday. The government began rolling out its booster programme in December, contacting senior citizens, people with chronic medical conditions, medical staff, and people who were vaccinated more than six months ago. The Health Ministry is aiming to administer 23 mn booster shots by 1H2022.

Around 206k vaccines have been given to older children aged 12-15 and 1.4 mn doses to teenagers aged 15-17, the prime minister said, without specifying how many have been fully vaccinated.

We received 3 mn Pfizer jabs from the US yesterday as part of the World Health Organization’s Gavi / Covax program, announced Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar.

Our shipment comes as the Gavi / Covax program has delivered 1 bn covid-19 vaccines to 144 countries, marking a “key milestone in the largest and most rapid global vaccine rollout in history," said Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi. Covax began delivering jabs in February 2021 to 144 countries including Egypt, which signed an agreement to receive 40 mn vaccine doses through the initiative in 2021.

The Health Ministry reported 1,197 new covid-19 infections yesterday, up from 1,101 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 400,076 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 25 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 22,148.

The Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) has approved AstraZeneca’s Evusheld — a preventative covid-19 antibody cocktail — for emergency use, Youm7 reported. This comes a month after Egypt’s Authority for Unified Procurement signed an agreement with AstraZeneca to procure its med, which can be used to prevent infection in individuals with weak immune systems for whom vaccines are not sufficient. Health Ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar had recently said our first shipment of pills is expected this month. We’re also expecting a shipment of Pfizer’s covid pill, Paxlovid, sometime this month, after we signed an agreement with the pharma giant to provide pills that could treat some 20k people.