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Monday, 21 February 2022

Our vaccine export hub ambitions are making headway, with a little help from China

Egypt is in talks with Libya to export locally made Sinovac jabs, Bloomberg quotes Heba Wali, head of state-owned jab-maker Vacsera, as saying in an interview, as plans to make Egypt into a vaccine export hub for the African continent move forward. Other African countries have also requested shipments of the jabs, Wali said, without naming them.

A Chinese delegation will visit at the end of February to discuss export plans with local authorities, Wali said, adding that exports to African countries could be made through the Gavi / Covax global donations program or via direct payments.

Our first overseas shipment of vaccines is heading to the Gaza Strip: Egypt and China are donating 500k Sinovac jabs to the Palestinian Authority, marking our first exports of the jab, according to a health ministry statement. China provided the raw materials for the doses, which were produced in Egypt by Vacsera.

Egypt has so far manufactured more than 30 mn Sinovac doses, according to the statement. We have capacity to make 100 mn doses this year, Bloomberg quoted Acting Health Minister Khaled Abdul Ghaffar as saying. Sinovac is supplying Vacsera with raw materials for 250 mn covid jabs in 2023.

And other jabs are in the pipeline for local production: The World Health Organization is giving us the tech to make our own Moderna-like mRNA vaccines, it announced earlier this week. Meanwhile, Abdel Ghaffar has also held talks with AstraZeneca’s Middle East and Africa head to discuss obtaining the company’s (non-mRNA) vaccine technology.

We received nearly 2.2 mn Pfizer jabs from the US yesterday, as part of Gavi / Covax, the health ministry announced in a statement.

From sending jabs abroad to getting them in arms at home: UNICEF and the Japanese embassy in Cairo yesterday signed a USD 3.5 mn MoU and grant agreement to help increase local vaccination rates, according to an International Cooperation Ministry statement. The funding will be used to establish new vaccination centers, install cooling systems in 500 existing centers, and train around 2k Health Ministry staff.

The Health Ministry reported 2,009 new covid-19 infections yesterday, down from 2,025 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 469,457 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 58 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 23,752.

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