Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed announced Friday that Egypt will begin locally producing the first five million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine within two months. Zayed said that manufacturing the vaccines with the Chinese company producing Sinovac took several months. The vaccine should cost no more than LE200 per person, Zayed announced, with low-income folks eligible to get their doses for free. Egypt is currently using China’s Sinopharm vaccine and the UK’s AstraOxford vaccine. So far, 100 million doses have been secured by the ministry through the COVAX initiative, which is enough to vaccinate roughly half of Egypt’s population.

Source: Egypt Independent April 24, 2021 12:33 UTC