During a recent meeting of the Supreme Committee for Crisis Management of Coronavirus, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stressed the imperativeness of vaccinating all Egyptians against COVID-19. He said the vaccination campaign should be accompanied by another to raise awareness of the importance of the vaccine in safeguarding against the disease and protecting society as a whole.
During the meeting which was attended by a number of Cabinet members including Health Minister Hala Zayed, and Higher Education Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, a number of decisions were made. As of 15 November 2021, the committee decided, no government employee will be allowed inside his or her place of work if they had not been vaccinated; those not vaccinated will have to take a PCR test on weekly basis to be able to enter their places of work.
The committee set the date 1 December 2021 to ban non-vaccinated people from accessing government offices or facilities.
The committee agreed to allocate EGP1 billion to efforts for combatting the pandemic.
Dr Zayed reviewed the current situation of COVID-19 in Egypt. She explained the efforts being made to make various vaccines available to Egyptians. She said that so far the Ministry of Health has provided 63.2 million doses of various coronavirus vaccines, according to agreements it had made with different producers. During the current month of October, she said, 7.8 million doses of AstraZeneca, Sinovak, Johnson & Johnson’s, and Pfizer vaccines are expected to arrive to Egypt. This, she explained, in addition to 2 million weekly doses of Sinovak-Vacsera vaccine locally produced at the Egyptian VACSERA factories in Agouza, Giza, and the satellite town of 6th October.
As far as logistics are concerned, Dr Zayed pointed out that In order to ensure that the vaccines safely reach their intended destinations, the Ministry of Health is providing in cooperation with UNICEF, five four-wheel drive vehicles, each equipped to carry 4.2 cubic meters of vaccines. These vehicles will be crucial to safely transport the vaccines to remote and border governorates. The Health Minister said that special cooling facilities are at hand to receive shipments of Pfizer vaccine; five with a capacity of 2 million doses were installed at Helwan warehouses.
Dr Zayed said that so far 31.7 million doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Egypt. She said that the Ministry is working to set up vaccination centres in places that usually accommodate gatherings, such as mosques, churches, courts of law, and traffic departments.
For his part, Minister of Higher Education said that until mid-October 1.2 million doses of the vaccines were administered to university faculty, staff and students, through 302 vaccination centres set up in 60 universities.
Last month, the committee had decided to make vaccination mandatory for university staff, students, and workers.
Watani International
18 October 2021