The Japanese Embassy in Cairo and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have signed an agreement for a $3.5 million grant to expand the scope of vaccination against Covid-19 in Egypt.
Minister of International Co-operation Rania al-Mashat and Acting Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar witnessed the signing ceremony.
The step comes within the framework of co-operation between Egypt and multilateral and bilateral development partners to support government plans to mitigate the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.
By the terms of the agreement, more vaccination centres will be set up across the country to speed up immunisation against Covid-19.
Al-Mashat said that since the beginning of the pandemic, the Ministry of International Co-operation has held a series of meetings with all development partners to support the efforts of the health sector in Egypt.
Co-operation with Japan covers health sector, and in 2021 a $19 million agreement with Japan was signed for the construction of an outpatient clinic building at Abu Al-Rish Japanese University Paediatrics Hospital, al-Mashat said, hailing co-operation with UNICEF through the country partnership programme with the United Nations.
The United Nations Partnership Development Framework (2018-2022) has witnessed much progress in child care and healthcare, al-Mashat said, adding that her ministry and the United Nations office in Egypt have devised a roadmap for the Strategic Partnership Framework (2023-2027).
The framework is aimed at supporting the Egyptian government’s effort towards economic and social development in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Abdel Ghaffar pointed out the importance of this agreement between Egypt, Japan and the UNICEF in boosting government plans to combat the coronavirus pandemic by installing cooling systems at 500 vaccination centres, securing vaccines during storage and transportation, and training medical teams.
Japanese Ambassador in Cairo Oka Hiroshi voiced his country’s keenness to maintain support for Egypt’s efforts to strengthen health sector.
Through this agreement, $3.9 million will go towards expanding access to anti-Covid vaccines, the envoy said.
A $230 million agreement was signed with Egypt to develop the health care sector and improve the response to the coronavirus pandemic, the envoy added.
Development co-operation agreements worth $600 million were signed in 2021 for the development of health care services in the country, including development financing of $400 million, and $182 million in funding from the French Development Agency to help carry out the comprehensive health insurance project nationwide.
In this context, Japan provided 700,260 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Japan to Egypt via the COVAX facility, which was the first provision of vaccines from Japan to the African continent in December 2021.
