As the coronavirus tops 1 million cases in Africa, Egypt’s health ministry has announced progress to manufacturing a coronavirus vaccine in cooperation with the Chinese government.
Egypt’s Minister of Health, Hala Zayed, chaired a meeting and inspected the readiness of production lines at the headquarters of the Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA). According to Egypt Independent, the minister among other things “discussed the number of doses needed to be produced and the vaccine’s production capacity once approved, in order to fulfill demand in Egypt and export to African countries. Egypt is becoming the continent’s center of vaccine manufacturing.”
There was an earlier meeting between Zayed and the Chinese Ambassador to Egypt, Liao Li Chang. The Ministry of Health and Population said that it has agreed with the Chinese side that Egypt should become Africa’s manufacturing center for the coronavirus vaccine.
According to the WHO, Egypt’s National Research Centre is testing four vaccines in pre-clinical trial. Seventeen potential vaccines are now in clinical trials worldwide, and 132 are in the pre-clinical trial stage. Presidential Adviser for Health Affairs Mohamed Awad Tageldin announced on Saturday that “a potential vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus will be available in Egypt by September once confirmed effective.”In July, the African Union Commission launched the new Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Consortium for COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Trial (CONCVACT).
