CAIRO: Egyptian Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced that the local manufacture of the country’s first 2 million Chinese Sinovac coronavirus vaccine doses will be completed within six to seven weeks.
Zayed expressed her optimism about Egypt’s future as a leading vaccine manufacturer, noting: “The process of producing a coronavirus vaccine goes through three stages; the first being the analysis of the raw material and control, then the production stage, followed by approval and registration. The first stage will not be repeated in the coming shipments of the raw material.”
The minister said that during the middle of the production of the first batch of vaccines, other shipments of raw material will be imported to keep the production process continuous, “until Egypt starts manufacturing the raw material locally.”
On Friday the ministry received its first batch of raw materials to manufacture 2 million vaccine doses.
Heba Wali, chairman of the Egyptian Holding Co. for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA), announced that a Chinese team of experts had arrived in Egypt on Thursday to work on producing the doses.
“It (the team) is scheduled to start producing … as part of a plan to produce 40 million doses,” she said.
Wali affirmed the state’s support for VACSERA in this regard, pointing to the government’s support for the company by allocating 750 million Egyptian pounds ($47.89 million) to keep up with the manufacture of the vaccine.
