TEHRAN, Iran, Aug.23
Trend:
The head of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce has revealed the price of the Sinopharm vaccine for Iran and criticized the private sector for entering the field of COVID-19 vaccine import.
Sinopharm companies face limitations to announce details of vaccine sale to Iran due to US sanctions and presence of American investors in the pharmaceutical company, Majidreza Hariri told Trend in an interview,
"So far, the lowest price for Sinopharm vaccine was $10 per dose, but parts of vaccines were sent to Iran as gift," he indicated.
He went on to say that China has offered 850,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine to Iran for free as a gift and currently China is providing considerable discounts to Iran.
"It has been predicted that 40 million doses of vaccine would be supplied to Iran by China," he said.
He criticized Iran's private sector's entrance in vaccine purchase, saying when the embassy was purchasing vaccine doses was $16 but when Iranian businessmen entered the market, the vaccine price reached $20.
"When an ambassador of a country uses political interaction for negotiation the price is lower," he added.
Tehran Chamber of Commerce was expected to import 6 million doses of vaccine, Hariri went on criticizing private sector saying if importers from the private sector received 25 cents more for each dose their profit would be $1.5 million that is a considerable figure, the ministry of health wanted to prevent these abuses.
"Vaccine is free in countries such as the US and the government's responsibility is to supply it," he added.
"We annually pay $2.2 billion to import medicine, and spending $70 million for importing coronavirus vaccine is not a big cost for the whole country and the government should pay the price," Hariri noted.
Since February, Iran's total of imported Covid-19 vaccines exceeded 25.5 million doses. The 21st consignment of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine arrived in Iran on Friday, August 20.
So far 18 million or so doses have been administered in Iran some 12 million were China’s Sinopharm vaccine, 4 million were the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, and one million were COVIran Barekat. More than half a million doses are being administered a day, and some 17 percent of Iran’s population of 85 million have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine