The Egyptian Authority for Unified Purchasing, which is responsible for the supply of medicines and medical supplies in Egypt, announced that the first shipments of the British AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus will arrive in Cairo Sunday, a week after Egypt launched the vaccination campaign against the virus.

"The first batches of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine will arrive tomorrow, Sunday, January 31, 2021," the authority wrote in a statement on its official Facebook page.

The authority did not clarify the amount of vaccines expected to arrive Sunday.

Last week, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Consolidated Procurement Authority, Bahaa Zaidan, confirmed that "the authority has contracted with R Pharma and Serum Institute, the manufacturers of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, to obtain 30 million doses" of it.

Last Sunday, Egypt launched the vaccination campaign with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, which included the first shipment of 50 thousand doses to Egypt in December.

The company that produces the vaccine, AstraZeneca, says it is 79 percent effective against the virus.

The Minister of Health, Hala Zayed, explained that the priority for vaccination will be for the medical staff, then the elderly and those suffering from chronic diseases.

Egypt has recorded about 165,000 cases of Coronavirus, including more than 9,200 deaths, but low testing rates means the number is likely much higher. 

The population of Egypt is 100 million.

Health officials warned that the low rate of tests designed to detect infection with the Coronavirus in Egypt means that the true number of infections may be at least ten times higher.

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