عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Egypt to Receive 120 Million Doses of COVID Vaccines

A worker performs a quality check in the packaging facility of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech. Reuters
A worker performs a quality check in the packaging facility of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech. Reuters
TT
TT

Egypt to Receive 120 Million Doses of COVID Vaccines

A worker performs a quality check in the packaging facility of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech. Reuters
A worker performs a quality check in the packaging facility of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech. Reuters

Egypt announced Saturday that it signed contracts to get 120 million doses of COVID-19 jabs, while the Health Ministry confirmed it will start inoculating with the locally produced Sinovac vaccine next month.

Meanwhile, the daily COVID-19 infection rate in the country has continued to decline. Egypt recorded 198 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, upping the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak in the country began to 281,772, the Health Ministry said.

According to the Ministry’s spokesman Khaled Megahed, 21 patients died from the virus, raising the death toll to 16,215. In addition, 666 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 212,725.

Health Minister Hala Zayed said late on Friday that Egypt’s VACSERA has produced around 650,000 doses of China's Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.

The vaccine will be ready to be administered in August.

According to the Health Minister, Egypt aims to vaccinate 40% of its population of just over 100 million by the end of 2021.

The Minister said that Egypt has not recorded Delta variant cases, but warned that the highly infectious variant could start circulating after it spread to many countries.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Ex-Tunisian Minister Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

Former Environment Minister Riadh Mouakher (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former Environment Minister Riadh Mouakher (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT
TT

Ex-Tunisian Minister Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

Former Environment Minister Riadh Mouakher (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former Environment Minister Riadh Mouakher (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Criminal Chamber specialized in financial corruption cases at the Court of First Instance of Tunis, sentenced on Friday former Environment Minister Riadh Mouakher to three years in prison, the Tunisian official news agency, TAP, reported.
The ruling is part of a corruption case related to breaches in a transaction carried out by the former minister for the purchase of several vehicles.
Investigation showed that the tender conditions were allegedly manipulated in favor of one particulate supplier.
In addition to Mouakher, the Chamber condemned a civil protection executive, seconded to the Environment Ministry, to two years in prison.
The two defendants are found guilty of abusing their functions to obtain an undue advantage, and therefore causing harm to the administration and contravening the regulations in force.
On Thursday, the Criminal Chamber specialized in corruption cases at the Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced a security officer to three years in prison and four others to four years in prison on charges of abusing their functions to obtain an undue advantage and harm others.
The five security officers had formed a group for the purpose of attacking property and exploiting a public employee.
According to documents related to the case, surveillance activities revealed that the five defendants, who work at a central department, were involved in seizing private funds, giving night jobs to some department agents, and transferring the profits to their personal accounts.
Their case was first examined by the Financial Chamber, which decided to sentence the five security guards to prison.
The case was later referred to the Criminal Chamber that examines financial corruption cases. The chamber had earlier kept the five defendants at liberty, before issuing late on Thursday the prison sentences.