Egypt is set to receive up to 26.6 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to the Adviser to the President for Health Affairs Awad Tag Eddin on Tuesday.
Tag Eddin said during televised statements on the “Sabah al-Khair Ya Masr” (Good Morning Egypt) program that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is currently being produced in South Africa, with half of the production supplied to Africa.
He also revealed the details of Egypt’s contract for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which recently joined the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines.
“According to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s directives to provide the largest possible number of vaccines for Egyptians, it was agreed that 20 million doses [of Johnson & Johnson vaccine] would be supplied to Egypt, and it was agreed that the timetable for providing these vaccines would start from next September,” he explained.
“But with the intense negotiations, the date of supply was changed to be the beginning of next July, and further negotiations were made on the number of doses to become 26.6 million doses instead of 20 million. The price was reduced so the price of a single dose became $7.5 instead of $10.”
Egypt’s Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced earlier in June that factories at the Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA) have already started manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines in cooperation with the Chinese company Sinovac.
She said that Egypt is in the process of producing the first two million doses within the agreement with Sinovac, and is scheduled to produce 40 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine by the end of this year.
Zayed added that Egypt is the first country in the African continent to start manufacturing the coronavirus vaccine, thanks to national companies that played a vital role in the manufacture of vaccines and serums over the past decades.
Egypt has obtained 2.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX facility, in which Egypt has participated since December 2020, through which it is expected to obtain a total of 40 million doses of the vaccine, in addition to 3.5 million doses of Sinopharm in cooperation with China, she said.
