Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 9
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran is facing the influenza vaccines and have to import 2 million flu shots by the next week, the Fars News Agency quoted Iran's Food and Drug Organization head Rasoul Dinarvand as saying.
Some problems at the production line of Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute caused a deficit of the vaccine. So, we imported one million flu shots and have to import 2 millions more by the next week, he added.
Recently, Iranian health minister has announced that the country is facing the shortage of polio vaccines because Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute faced problems in producing the vaccine.
In March, Head of Food and Drug Organization under Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Mohammad Qeysarzadeh said that Iran currently collaborates with a foreign company that is preparing the necessary infrastructure for manufacturing the vaccine.
The influenza vaccination, also known as a flu shot, is an annual vaccination using a vaccine specific for a given year to protect against the highly variable influenza virus.
"The influenza vaccine costs a lot, so for Iran it would be more beneficial to manufacture it domestically, rather than importing it," Qeysarzadeh said.
He added that Iran currently is able to cover about 60 percent of various vaccines that the country needs, such as vaccines from poliomyelitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus.
On November 6, Iranian Health Minister, Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi said that Iran will manufacture at least seven important vaccines during the next four years.
He went on to note that, the country faces a shortage in supplying some needed vaccines, without unveiling any exact details.
Iran was a main vaccine producer and was able to supply all vaccine needs of the region, Qazizadeh Hashemi said, adding that at the present, unfortunately the county has to import its needed vaccine.
Iran has changed from a vaccine exporter country to vaccine importer during the last decade.
According to a report dated December 2003 by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, vaccines which were produced by Iranian manufacturers covered most of the domestic needs for human vaccines, both in terms of the diseases covered and the volumes of the manufactured vaccines.
As a result of efforts to expand vaccine production, Iran had been lauded by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the most successful country of the region in immunizing children against polio. Furthermore, the Iranian Razi Institute was one of the first institutes in the world able to mass-produce the poliomyelitis vaccines.