Asia-West / Mid-East / North-Africa

One of its main potential uses is as a vaccine that can be shipped to a country in the grip of an acute outbreak which needs to be subdued quickly.

The move came after the government late last year issued a compulsory license to a company called Pharmasyntez, which unsuccessfully approached Gilead about obtaining a license to produce a version of the medicine.

During the meeting, the Committee reviewed the prices of six innovative drugs from international companies, and decided to reduce the prices of these drugs.

It has also granted approval to Russia's Sputnik vaccine.

Syria's government has received its first delivery of COVID-19 vaccines through the global COVAX initiative, with almost 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca shot.

Egyptian pharmaceutical firm Minapharm has agreed to produce more than 40 million doses a year of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

Although more than half the population has been inoculated, Israel may not be able to keep up the momentum of the roll out.

Iran approved Sputnik V for domestic use in January, and says it has received more than 400,000 of the 2 million doses it ordered from Russia.

The small Gulf state already offers citizens and residents free of charge four vaccines.

Health officials had said Syria was engaged with Russia and China on vaccines but no bilateral deals have been announced yet.

Egypt has approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19, becoming the 34th country outside of Russia and third in North Africa to do so.

The World Bank’s reallocation of $34 million enabled Lebanon to receive its first two batches of about 60,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses this month.

Israel is leading the world with its COVID-19 vaccine rollout and it’s already seeing results, but the campaign has been met with some hesitant demographics and criticism for not vaccinating Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia’s food and drug administration has approved the COVID vaccine made by AstraZeneca, state TV reported on Thursday.

Gaza, where 2 million people live, has reported more than 53,000 coronavirus cases and 538 deaths.