TEHRAN – Participating in a consultative workshop, national experts and international partners explored the potential to promote the country’s immunization programmes.

The two-day workshop to develop Iran’s National Immunization Strategic Plan was held from 9–10 June 2025 at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). 

The consultative workshop provided stakeholders with a platform to review and update national immunization strategies, identify challenges, and discuss ways to improve vaccine coverage across the country, the WHO website announced in a press release on June 30.

Participants included representatives from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, universities of medical sciences, the Iran Food and Drug Organization, the Pasteur Institute of Iran, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Head of the Communicable Diseases Department at the WHO Country Office in Iran, Omid Zamani, shared insights drawn from successful global immunization experiences and emphasized the importance of aligning with Immunization Agenda 2030 targets and adapting international best practices to the Iranian context and local health infrastructure.

Focusing on country ownership and local adaptation helps ensure that the resulting strategic plan is evidence-based, practical, and sustainable, and can be effectively implemented within the country.

The workshop also heard from national leaders, including the head of the NIHR, Ali Akbari Sari, who highlighted the Institute’s scientific support role, andthe  Essential Program on Immunization Manager at the Ministry of Health and Medical Education Seyyed Mohsen Zahraei, who reiterated the need for operational plans to be tailored to local conditions.

Participants engaged in specialized group discussions, delving into goals, implementation strategies, and key assessment indicators. The outcomes of these collaborative sessions will form the foundation for the final version of the National Immunization Strategic Plan. Once finalized, the plan will be submitted to the relevant authorities for approval.

Another focus of the workshop was to establish effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to track progress and impact.

WHO’s participation underscores its commitment to supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran by leveraging global knowledge for national health priorities. WHO is a committed partner to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, providing technical guidance and support to strengthen essential health services, including robust and equitable immunization programmes that protect the population from vaccine-preventable diseases.

The workshop was supported by a grant from GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

Recent vaccination program

On May 6, the health ministry started distributing domestically made pentavalent vaccines across the country, according to the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Pentavalent vaccine is a combination vaccine with five individual vaccines conjugated into one. It protects infants against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type B.

“The distribution of the first shipment of the locally-made five-in-one combination vaccine will officially commence tomorrow, on Tuesday, all over the country,” IRNA quoted Mehdi Pirsalehi as saying.

“So far, about 800,000 units of the vaccine have been developed, and this number is expected to reach 1.2 million units in the next 2 to 3 days,” he noted.

In line with the polio eradication campaign that kicked off in winter, around 300,000 more children under five years of age are getting vaccinated in two phases in high-risk areas in the country’s northern half in spring, according to the health ministry.

In the current Iranian year that started on March 20, the first phase was conducted from April 12 to 14, and the second phase is planned to be implemented from June 17 to 19, the health ministry reported.

Polio eradication campaign is among the remarkable achievements of the health ministry. 

However, in Iran’s two neighboring countries, namely Afghanistan and Pakistan, endemic transmission of wild poliovirus is still prevalent. In 2024, the number of wild poliovirus positives in Afghanistan and Pakistan increased by four and twelve times, respectively, compared to 2023.

To prevent the outbreak of the disease in the country, in the past Iranian calendar year which ended on March 20, the annual door-to-door polio vaccination campaign was implemented in two phases, with a month interval between them, targeting children under the age of five in high-risk regions in the southern part of the country.

The first phase was conducted from January 4 to 6, and the second phase started on February 15 and concluded on February 17. During the campaign, some 840,000 Iranian and foreign national children under the age of 5 were immunized against polio by medical universities in Sistan-Baluchestan, Kerman, Fars, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, South Khorasan, and Yazd provinces.