Egypt’s Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed has met with Aurelia Nguyen, Managing Director of COVAX, co-lead by GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.
The meeting took place at the headquarters of the Permanent Mission of the United Nations (UN) at the Egyptian Embassy in Geneva.
The meeting came during Zayed’s visit to the Swiss city, to discuss and enhance ways of cooperation in the health field with a number of international organisations.
During the meeting, the two parties discussed the plan for the urgent supply of vaccines to Egypt, to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). This also covered the supply of future batches in the second quarter of the agreement, covering July and August, through the COVAX facility, in which Egypt has participated since December 2020.
Egypt is set to obtain 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX. Zayed has confirmed that the country will receive about 1.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the facility during the coming days, within the first quarter of the agreement.
Moreover, the meeting also discussed the challenges facing the equitable distribution of vaccines against COVID-19.
The minister affirmed Egypt’s readiness to cooperate with the COVAX facility and various manufacturers, to produce vaccines through Egyptian factories to contribute to accelerating the supply of vaccines to various countries.
She also reviewed the executive steps taken by Egypt to manufacture the coronavirus vaccines locally. The facility has supplied Egypt with about 2.2 million doses of vaccines over the past period.
