The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Last Wednesday, Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced that Egypt is due to receive another vaccine shipment from COVAX, a global facility to provide Coronavirus vaccines to countries in need, particularly developing countries. The shipment will contain 500,000 units of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine and 1.9 million units of British-Swedish AstraZeneca. The Sinopharm vaccines are set to arrive in the upcoming days, while the AstraZeneca jabs should be in Egypt by the first week of June. Zayed has also announced that the raw materials needed to produce the Sinovac vaccine should be available in Egypt soon, allowing for the manufacturing of two million doses of the vaccine by the end of June.

Moreover, Bahaa El-Din Zidan, head of the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement, has announced that Egypt is set to receive 20 million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine before the end of the year. He also declared that Minapharm, a local manufacturer, will be producing about 40 million doses of the vaccine per year, starting the end of 2021. Zidan also stated that Egypt has ordered four million units of the Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine, set to be received later this year through the African Union.

Vaccines are currently being provided to industrial and economic workers, as well as prison inmates across the country. These are all efforts done in hopes of decreasing the number of coronavirus cases in Egypt. So far, over 3.5 million people in Egypt have registered to get vaccinated, according to Noha Assem, advisor to the Minister of Health. The ministry is supposedly helping develop an automated registration system to help speed up the vaccination process.

According to an article published by the Egyptian Government, Hala Zayed has spoken about the situation in Egypt, noting that certain precautionary measures should be taken regarding incoming flights. She added that Egypt should hope to decrease its precautionary measures by taking steps such as evaluation periods, consideration of the extent of continued closure, and tracking the increasing number of coronavirus infections. She has also stressed the importance of providing oxygen to hospitals across the country, stating that the government will provide oxygen concentrators, generators, and cylinders.

Finally, on Wednesday, the Ministry of Health announced that around 1,003 individuals have recovered from Coronavirus after receiving proper medical care and have thus been discharged from hospitals. This, according to the Egyptian government, brings the total number of individuals recovered from coronavirus to 183,696.

If all goes well, these efforts should see a decrease in coronavirus cases across the country, finally allowing Egypt to open up again.