Egypt will witness next week the production of the first package of locally-manufactured Sinovac coronavirus vaccine, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said on Wednesday.
In a statement issued on the same day in the weekly cabinet meeting, Madbouly expressed gratitude for the efforts made by the concerned authorities to protect citizens from this global epidemic.
Egypt received its first shipment — 1,400 litres — of Beijing-based Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine's raw material in May, enough to manufacture 2 million doses at the Egyptian Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA) by the end of June.
The 2 million shots are part of a wider deal with the Chinese company to produce a total of 40 million doses by the end of 2021 in Egypt, which aims to vaccinate 40 percent of its 100 million-plus population by that time.
The local production of the Sinovac vaccine, approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use on 1 June and by the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) in April, comes within Egypt's aim to become a manufacturing vaccine hub for Africa after meeting local needs.
The Sinovac jab is an inactivated vaccine and, according to the WHO, its easy storage requirements make it “very manageable, and particularly suitable” for low-resource settings, preventing the symptomatic disease in 51 percent of those vaccinated and avoiding severe COVID-19 in 100 per cent of the studied population. The WHO recommends the Sinovac-CoronaVac vaccine for use in adults 18 years and older.
Egypt has until now increased its stock of imported vaccines to 5.6 million doses.
Source: Al-Ahram Online
