President Rouhani: 13mn Iranians to receive COVID-19 vaccine in next 2 months

Iran’s president says 13 million Iranians will be vaccinated against COVID-19 by July 22, as the country moves ahead with plans to develop a number of domestic vaccine candidates.

“According to the Health Ministry’s timetable, by the end of the [Iranian] month of Tir (July 22), 13 million people from the high-risk groups in the country will be vaccinated,” President Hassan Rouhani said during a meeting of his administration's economic coordination office on Sunday.

Rouhani said his administration is determined to garner power for the domestic production of vaccines, but he noted that in the meantime, vaccine must be imported from other countries to save people’s lives, because "no time should be lost to this end."

He pointed out that the process of preparing and supplying vaccines is not very easy, citing vaccine shortages in the world and restrictions created by sanctions against Iran’s payment system as problems faced by the country.

However, Rouhani continued, “given the efforts and measures taken, we can hope that supplying and importing vaccines would turn into a routine process with the necessary speed, such that there would be no incoordination and obstacles in this path.”

The president also said providing, supplying and producing vaccines are the main priorities for the Plan and Budget Organization (PBO), the Central Bank, and the Health Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry has also made special and effective efforts in this regard, he added.

In remarks on Saturday, Rouhani expressed hope that Iran would reach a “reassuring trend” in its vaccination bid within a month through an increase in importing vaccines and the mass production of Iran’s first homegrown vaccines for public use.

“According to reports, the Co-Pasteur vaccine will be available by the end of Ordibehesht (May 21) and the [Coviran] Barekat vaccine will be ready for use in Khordad (May-June),” he explained.

Iran has been battling one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in the world since February 2020.

According to Iran’s Health Ministry, 386 more people died of COVID-19 in Iran over the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 74,910. At the same time, 13,576 new cases were also registered for a total of more than 2.65 million infections.

Meanwhile, Iran has been trying to curb the fourth major wave of its COVID-19 outbreak, which saw cases and deaths beginning to soar more than a month ago, after almost three months of successful containment.

The Iranian government has imposed a travel ban during the days leading to Eid al-Fitr – religious holidays marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan – in hopes of flattening the curve.

Alireza Raeisi, the spokesman for the National Headquarters for Managing and Fighting the Coronavirus, said on Saturday that traveling to all cities will be banned from 2 pm local time on Tuesday until next Saturday at noon.

According to Raeisi, 46 cities across Iran are still classified as “red” while 263 are “orange” and 139 are “yellow.”

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