Egypt’s vaccination program under scrutiny as later registrants receive doses quicker

Egypt’s coronavirus vaccination program is under scrutiny, as many who were among the first to register, including those in more vulnerable categories, report waiting far longer to receive their initial dose than members of the general public in recent days.

The Health Ministry’s online vaccine registration system was launched on February 28 and was initially only open to doctors, the elderly and those with chronic conditions. Soon afterward, in early March, registration was opened to any citizen over 18.

Yet, over the past several days, stories began circulating on social media of people outside of vulnerable categories receiving the vaccine as soon as one day after registering online. While some hailed the efficiency of the vaccination program, concerns mounted over the triage process, with many who had registered last month, including the elderly and people with chronic conditions, yet to be scheduled for their first dose.

The irregular rollout appears to be an issue of the online registration system. When it was first launched on February 28, there were only 40 vaccination centers nationwide. As hundreds of thousands registered for the vaccine in the first few weeks, these several dozen vaccination sites saw extremely long waitlists, especially in the densely populated areas of Cairo and Giza, an official at the Health Ministry’s hotline told Mada Masr.

On March 23, the Health Ministry announced that it added more than 90 new vaccination centers, bringing the total across the country to 138. People who registered for the vaccine after this date in the new centers benefitted from extremely short wait times to receive their first dose, with some being scheduled for a dose as quickly as one day after registering. Those who had registered earlier in the process, however, were stuck with long wait times and were unable to chose another vaccination site, the official said.

To tackle the problem, the Health Ministry is planning to amend the registration system within the coming days to enable those who have already registered to change their choice of vaccination center.

Egypt kicked off its vaccination campaign on January 24, with a live television broadcast of a nurse and a doctor from Ismalia’s Abou Khalifa isolation hospital receiving their first doses. For over a month, the vaccination campaign focused on medical professionals, before opening up to other people.

Egypt has one of the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates in the world. As of March 25, around 600,000 citizens had registered for the vaccine, with around 35,000 receiving their first dose, according to televised comments by Dr. Mohamed Abdel Fattah, the head of the Health Ministry’s preventative medicine administration.

Egypt has so far received a total of 730,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine — 680,000 of the vaccine manufactured by China's state-owned pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm and 50,000 doses of the AstraZeneca, according to the president’s health advisor. The Egyptian government has reserved 100 million vaccine doses, including 40 million doses from COVAX, an international initiative to distribute vaccines to middle- and low-income countries, according to Health Minister Hala Zayed.

Egypt’s top drug regulatory authority has so far approved four coronavirus vaccines for emergency use: AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sputnik V, and Johnson Johnson.

Egypt has reported more than 200,050 confirmed COVID-19 cases over the course of the pandemic, including 11,882 deaths. The actual number of COVID-19 cases is thought to be far higher, in part because of official government testing policies, with large numbers of samples analyzed outside of the Health Ministry’s Central Labs being excluded from the official count.

In December, presidential health advisor Mohamed Tag Eddin said that the Health Ministry only announces the number of cases recorded in its official medical facilities, indicating that the actual number of infections must be higher. The independent Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research estimated that the number of COVID-19 cases in Egypt since the start of the pandemic and until the end of 2020 may be as high as 2.9 million, based on a phone survey conducted by the research center.