Egypt announces clinical trials of its own COVID-19 vaccine

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s national research body says it will start clinical trials for a domestically made coronavirus vaccine. The country’s acting health minister told reporters on Sunday that researchers are starting human clinical trials for the shot, named COVI VAX, that will eventually include thousands of people. The Egyptian vaccine works by including proteins from the original virus to provoke an immune response. Egypt has been struggling to vaccinate more of its population and has so far been reliant on shipments of the shots from other countries, many of them through the WHO’s COVAX initiative.