Egypt’s students will sit for their high school exams on Saturday amid high precautionary measures, as the number of COVID-19 fatalities continues to decline.
The Health Ministry urged the population on Friday to get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab.
“The eligible categories are being expanded and the number of vaccine recipients is increasing as the Ministry obtains more batches of the vaccine,” the statement said, adding that Egypt is one of the first countries in the African continent to start manufacturing the vaccine.
The Ministry confirmed that in the past few weeks, Egypt obtained more than 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and that 610,000 doses will be sent to vaccine centers early next week, after completing their analysis.
The Ministry also expects to receive quantities of raw materials for the Sinovac vaccine by the end of next week, sufficient to manufacture 3 million doses, in addition to obtaining raw materials sufficient to produce 4.6 million doses by the end of this month.
The Ministry is scheduled to receive more AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines in the coming days, with plans to allocate them for travel purposes.
The statement noted that 2.4 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine are being manufactured locally and will be distributed to vaccination centers by the end of July.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry said Friday that in the past 24 hours, 155 new coronavirus infections were detected, upping the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 282,737.
Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said 19 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 16,351.
Also, 765 patients were discharged from hospitals after receiving medical care, taking the number of recoveries to 216,982, the spokesman added.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education said that exams for the secondary certificate will kick off on Saturday in all Egyptian governorates.
The Ministry stressed the importance of preparing isolation rooms for each exam committee to isolate those suspected of being infected with the virus.
It added that people in charge of the exams must wear medical masks and must keep them throughout the exams.
