CAIRO — Egypt will vaccinate all 4.5 million of
its state employees against COVID-19 in August and September as it seeks to
accelerate vaccinations ahead of a likely fourth wave of infections, the health
minister said on Monday.
اضافة اعلان
The country's infection rate is still low but started to
increase last week and the upward curve is expected to continue for a while,
Hala Zayed told a briefing, adding that a significant increase is expected in
late September.
"It is important for the Egyptian government and the
political leadership that we work to intensify
vaccinations in the coming
period," Zayed said.
As part of the program, all workers in pre-university
education, university employees and university students — a total of more than
5 million people — will be vaccinated before the start of the academic year in
October, she said.
So far, about 10 million people have registered online to
get vaccinated and nearly 7.5 million have received at least one dose, Zayed
said.
The prime minister said in June the government aimed to
vaccinate 40 percent of the population of more than 100 million by the end of
this year.
Egypt has received millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines
produced by AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sinovac, Sputnik, and Johnson &
Johnson.
It has also produced 15 million doses of Sinovac's vaccine
locally, Zayed said, and will receive about 5.2 million doses produced by
Pfizer and Moderna in September.
The Egyptian Drug Authority on Monday approved an emergency
use licence for the locally produced VACSERA-
Sinovac vaccines, it said in a
statement.
The country plans to have 800 vaccine centers running by the
end of August, up from 657 currently.
Egypt has recorded 286,352 COVID-19 infections as of Sunday,
including 16,674 deaths. However, officials and experts say the real number of
infections is far higher but is not reflected in government figures because of
low coronavirus testing rates and the exclusion of private test results.
The first COVID-19 infection from the Delta variant was
discovered in Egypt in mid-July, Zayed said, adding that it concerned a
35-year-old woman who did not need hospitalization.
Other cases were discovered later among Egyptians but none
were hospitalized because they had mild symptoms, she added.
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