Egypt announced Sunday it will begin clinical trials for its own version of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the country’s acting health minister, said the trial for the vaccine, named ‘COVI VAX’ will only start with a small number of test subjects. The trial will then expand to hundreds of people and eventually thousands, according to Associated Press.
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“It’s a very important strategic situation, that there is an Egyptian vaccine that we can rely on in the coming period,” Ghaffar told the outlet.
Ghaffar’s announcement comes a day prior to Egypt mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for government employees.
Beginning Nov. 15, all government employees are expected to show proof of vaccination to enter their workplaces, the outlet reported.
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Egypt, with a population of approximately 102,000,000, has experienced a cumulative 340,269 cases of COVID-19, with 19,249 deaths recorded. Since the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine, 19,462,191 residents have received their first dose, and 11,811,236 residents are fully vaccinated, according to the World Health Organization.
