Egypt to Receive 20 Million Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine in First Quarter of 2021

Even while we were in lockdown, with our borders closed off from other nations, the Coronavirus was a matter of global cooperation. Little else exemplifies this quite like COVAX, a global initiative co-led by WHO, Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Their goal is simple, even if the implementation is inevitably complex: to provide the COVID-19 vaccine to the world's most vulnerable populations. As of December 2020, they've been able to arrange the transfer of two billion doses of the vaccine to 172 countries for the first quarter of 2021. And among them is Egypt, who is set to receive 20 million doses thanks to this initiative.

“COVID-19 is an unprecedented global health challenge that can only be met with unprecedented cooperation between governments, researchers, manufacturers and multilateral partners,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said. “By pooling resources and acting in solidarity through the ACT Accelerator and the COVAX Facility, we can ensure that once a vaccine is available for COVID-19, it’s available equitably to all countries.”

Egypt is set to have half a million doses of the Chinese vaccine, Sinopharm, by the end of 2020. As 2021 rolls around, COVAX will be sharing from their portfolio of nine candidate vaccines (which includes the AstraZeneca vaccine from the University of Oxford), depending on which is ready for use. COVAX aims to supply the world with two billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2021.