TEHRAN, Iran, Nov. 23
Trend:
The Director of the Virology Department of Iran`s Pasteur Institute announced that most likely, the Iranian vaccine will be distributed in the market by next summer.
“The knowledge of vaccine manufacturing in Iran is old and our country has a lot of experience in this field, but in the current situation and according to the production process of COVID-19 vaccine, the mass production phase will probably last until the summer,” the head of Virology Department of Iran`s Pasteur Institute Keyhan AzadManesh said, Trend reports citing IRNA.
Referring to the three phases of testing the coronavirus vaccine he says that "Phase one last at least one month. After the completion of phase one, it had to be reported to the Food and Drug Administration to be allowed to enter the second phase."
"In some companies, we have just started phase one," he said. "Phase 2, which is an animal vaccine testing, has started in a number of other Iranian companies, and this phase also takes two to three months."
"The first phase mentioned by the Minister of Health was laboratory production. The second is animal testing and the third is a human trial,” said Azadmanesh adding that "The human testing phase also has four phases itself, the last of which is the evaluation of the vaccine after it distributes to the market."
The latest achievements of Iranian researchers for developing COVID-19 vaccine platforms were discussed in a meeting on Tuesday in the presence of Health Minister Saeed Namaki and senior representatives of the World Health Organization.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the health minister said Iran will soon be recognized as one of the leading countries in coronavirus vaccine development.
Vaccine platform in several Iranian companies, including in the pharmaceutical department of the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, has successfully passed the first and second phases and are going through the third phase, he explained.
Mostafa Ghane'ei, an official with the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, said that the domestically produced COVID-19 vaccine will probably be injected into the whole population in the [next Iranian calendar year] month of Mehr (starting September 23, 2021).