Egypt receives 1,842 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine

Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abd el-Ghaffar, who is also acting Minister of Health and Population, said the shipment was offered by the United States, through the COVAX in co-operation with the International Gavi alliance.

This comes within the state’s plan to diversify and expand the provision of anti-coronavirus vaccines, a statement issued by the Ministry of Health said on Sunday.

The Pfizer vaccine has emergency use approval from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Egyptian Drugs Authority (EDA), Ministry of Health official spokesperson Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar said, adding that the vaccine is administered in two doses 21 days apart.

Abdel-Ghaffar said that the Pfizer vaccines would be distributed to vaccination centres across the country after checking them.

Egypt managed in a short time to provide all the anti-coronavirus vaccines approved by the WHO, including Sinovac, Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Sputnik, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna.

Egypt has received 132 million coronavirus vaccine doses since the start of the pandemic and has already used 60.5 million doses throughout its vaccination campaign, Abdel-Ghaffar said earlier this month.

The health minister said 500,000 booster vaccine shots have been administered in Egypt to priority groups.

Children aged 15 to 18 have received 1.4 million vaccine shots, while younger children of the age group 12-15 received 206,000 shots, Abdel-Ghaffar added.

The government has announced new coronavirus-related restrictions at airports, seaports and land crossings, as the country witnesses a surge in daily infections and reports of the highly infectious Omicron as the dominant variant.

Starting January 22, Egyptian and foreign travellers to Egypt, except children below the age of 12, will require certificates of coronavirus vaccination or negative results of virus tests, Abdel-Ghaffar said.

Coronavirus tests have to be taken within 72 hours of arrival to the Egyptian ports.

A vaccination certificate has to show that the traveller had received the single-dose vaccine or the last dose of the two-shot vaccines at least 14 days before arrival, Abdel-Ghaffar noted.

Travellers will also have to show they took vaccines approved by the WHO or the EDA, Abdel-Ghaffar said.

If travellers are not vaccinated, they must present a negative coronavirus test from among those accredited by the Egyptian Health Ministry, which are PCR test or Antigen Rapid Test or ID Now test.