The Egyptian cabinet announced in a statement after a meeting on Sunday, 28 November that children between the ages of 12 to 15 will be eligible to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. This comes following the vaccine being declared safe for 18 to 15-year-olds earlier this month.
The statement further specified that the vaccine 18 to 12-year-olds will be eligible to receive is the BioNTech Pfeizer vaccine, of which Egypt has recently receive a shipment of 3.8 million doses as part of the COVAX initiative.
Acting Health Ministed Khaled Abdel Ghaffar stated in the meeting that nearly 16 million Egyptians have been fully vaccinated, while nearly 30 million have received their first dose. According to Abdel Ghaffar, Egypt currently possesses 88.2 million doses of the different COVID-19 vaccines, including the locally manufactured Sinovac, the Chinese Sinopharm, the British AstraZeneca, Sputnik from Russia, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna from the US.
To aid Egypt’s ongoing vaccination effort, non-vaccinated government employees were banned from entering their workplaces on 15 November. The ban will apply to any other citizens entering government buildings on 1 December.
Egypt recently began introducing walk-in vaccination units in metro stations across Cairo, and plans to set up similar walk-in units are underway. The Health Ministry has also launched an application allowing Egyptians and expats living in Egypt to generate a QR code verifying their vaccination status.
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