TEHRAN, Iran, Apr.20
Trend:
It is expected that one million doses of vaccine would be distributed soon and one million people would be vaccinated by the next week, said the Minister of Health.
"The following one million individuals are in the priority group that includes doctors and paramedical, healthcare workers and medical interns and students that have high infection risk alongside patients with incurable diseases, cancer, and vulnerable groups," said Saeed Namaki, Trend reports citing IRNA.
Patients with risks including cancer, or with rare diseases and those using a medicine that weakens immune systems would be registered on the priority list and they would be vaccinated by the end of next week,.
"We hope to follow the second phase of vaccination until mid-May based on schedule," he said during the sideline of the Helsinki Policy Forum.
"We have started our cooperation with COVAX and pre-purchased 16.8 million doses of vaccine and were challenged for money transfer for months," he added.
After nine months of negotiations, Iran signed an agreement with Russia for joint production of Sputnik V vaccine.
"We were certainly are aware that COVAX is a proper mechanism but the executive power in this organization could not support us due to limitation of vaccine production, therefore, we asked India, China, and Russia and signed contracts with them," he said.
"We have expressed objection over sanctions that targeted countries such as Iran and deprived us of vaccines and equipment and also announced that despite sanctions Iran is managing medicines that treat Covid-19, medical equipment and six vaccine production platforms that would be used in coming months," he said.