Egypt affirmed readiness to provide Africa and the Middle East with coronavirus vaccines as soon as manufacturing kicks off.
Egyptian Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed revealed that work is underway to make Egypt a hub for manufacturing vaccines for Africa and the Middle East in the coming period.
This came in remarks she made on Thursday during a videoconference meeting of the Bureau of the Assembly of African Union Heads of State and Government and heads of regional economic assemblies.
According to Zayed, Cairo wants to join the COVID-19 African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT).
The AVATT initiative aims to accelerate African participation in the vaccine’s clinical development, overcome all financing-linked challenges to provide vaccines to eligible groups and support African countries’ capacities to produce and distribute the vaccine among citizens.
She highlighted the importance of cooperation among all African countries to bolster the maximum benefit from the initiative.
Egypt has participated with other world countries in clinical trials as part of a research package into the clinical trial in its third phase of the emerging coronavirus vaccine in cooperation with the Chinese government and the UAE G42 Healthcare Company, the minister stated.
She said partnership among countries had become a reason for creating one of the virus’s effective vaccines, calling for solidarity among all countries of the African continent at this difficult time to overcome the crisis.
Zayed further pointed to the importance of maximizing the benefit from the African Medicine Agency Treaty, saying that it allows African countries to use emergency registration of vaccines, adopt a policy of optimal use of vaccines, move vaccine surpluses to the countries in need the most and exchange expertise among countries in this field.
The health minister affirmed her country’s readiness to freely share its e-system that allows recording and tracking vaccine recipients with countries that cannot set up similar systems.
Also, Zayed noted that the rate of COVID-19 infections has decreased by 11 percent last week in the country.
