Min.: Egypt First to Do Coronavirus Vaccine Experiment in Africa, Middle East

Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research announced that, according to the website "Clinical Trials" http://clinicaltrials.gov, Egypt is the first among the countries of the Middle East and Africa to carry out experiments aiming to find a cure for the emerging coronavirus -COVID-19.

He pointed out the efforts of Egyptian universities and research centers to carry out most clinical trials at the level of the African continent, with 22 clinical trials out of 30 experiments conducted by African countries.

Abdel-Ghaffar stated that Egypt conducted half of the experiments carried out by countries in the Middle East to find a cure to resist the novel coronavirus.

He added that the Middle East countries carried out 44 experiments since the virus began spreading in China, pointing out to Egypt's progress in Iran, Israel, Turkey, Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

The Minister indicated that among the Egyptian universities that participated in these experiments, Ain Shams University, Cairo University, Assiut University, Tanta University, Kafr El-Sheikh University, Zagazig University, Al-Azhar University, in addition to the National Center for Research.

Abdel-Ghaffar explained that despite the world's countries conducting 1161 clinical studies, Egypt came in the top ten in the world in terms of conducting clinical trials to combat the novel coronavirus.

This comes in light of the interest and support of the political leadership of the role of Egyptian scientists in contributing to the world to find solutions to control the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.

It is worth mentioning that some of this research revolves around a retrospective study of respiratory patients from November 2019 to February 2020, a study of the genetic sequence of the Coronavirus for Egyptian patients, the use of plasma treatment of recovering patients, and a comparative study of some drugs used globally and other laboratory and clinical research knowing that the "Clinical Trials" is affiliated with the National Institute of Health of the US (NIH) https://www.nih.gov.

It is also a database in terms of registration and results of clinical studies supported by the public and private sectors of human participants, conducted around the world.

Contributed by Ahmad El-Assasy