Late Thursday, Egypt received first shipment of China developed Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group, Sinopharm. Egypt’s health officials said of expecting more shipments soon. The shipment was sent by the UAE, which is conducting phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine, and was received at the Cairo airport.

This week UAE’s health ministry communicated the Sinopharm vaccine to have 86% efficiency based on the interim analysis of trials in final phase. In China the vaccine has already been inoculated to at least 1 million people in an emergency programme.

The vaccine will be given to people in Egypt free of charge by the government. The two dose vaccine which will be given 21 days apart, will be given on priority basis to medical staff and people with chronic conditions.

Number of doses ordered by Egypt is still unclear, but according to health minister’s communication, more shipments are expected in coming days.

Egypt is a big market for vaccines with a population of over 100 million. Russia too, in September, had announced a deal with Egypt of supplying it with 25 million doses of its Sputnik V vaccine.

Government of Egypt has reported very low number of cases of coronavirus infection. This is also partly because of low testing rate in public. But government has warned against second wave of pandemic with daily number of cases seeing a surge. As on Wednesday, Egypt had recorded 119,702 cases of Covid-19 and 6,832 death toll.