Egypt to locally produce Pfizer’s anti-viral pill for Covid-19 within 45 days

Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin, the health affairs advisor to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, announced on Wednesday that Egypt would produce the Covid-19 medication within 45 days.

MENA

1 min read

Thaer Mansour

22 December, 2021

Egypt to produce Pfizer's pill for treating Covid-19 locally. [Getty]

Cairo - Egypt will produce within 45 days an oral anti-viral pill that treats Covid-19. Local news outlets quoted Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin, health affairs advisor to president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, as saying on Wednesday that the drug would be made available for the public at pharmacies.

According to Tag Eddin, the medication has no serious side effects and works on mild Covid-19 infections. Yet it requires further clinical trials, he added. It will be manufactured under the trade name Merck.

America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to authorise the medication, produced by US-based Pfizer, later in the day after it received preliminary approval.

On Tuesday evening, the Egyptian health ministry reported a total of 848 Covid-19 cases and 47 deaths, among a population of around 101 million people.