TEHRAN — Tehran and Moscow have mulled over plans on the joint production of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, Tasnim reported on Friday.

In a videoconference, Iran’s Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev discussed collaboration between the two countries in development of the vaccine.

Jalali congratulated Russia on its success to produce a vaccine for COVID-19.

The ambassador voiced Tehran’s readiness to cooperate with Moscow in the production of the vaccine, following a recent conversation between the Iranian and Russian health ministers on joint pharmaceutical projects.

The ambassador pointed to the results of recent meetings between the Pasteur Institute of Iran and the Russian Gamali National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, and expressed the hope that the process of joint production of the vaccine would begin soon under the auspices of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

For his part, Dmitriev expressed satisfaction with close cooperation between the two countries in developing COVID-19 vaccine, saying the mass-production of vaccine in collaboration with Iran would be soon put on Russia’s agenda.

In an interview with Tasnim in August, Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Jagarian said his country was ready to provide Iran with the Russian vaccine for coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the death toll from COVID-19 in Iran surpassed 22,000 on Friday, while more than 330,000 positive cases have recovered from the disease.

Speaking at a daily press briefing on Friday, Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said the coronavirus has taken the lives of 118 patients during the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 22,044.

The number of people tested positive for COVID-19 in Iran has risen to 382,772 after the detection of 2,026 new cases since Thursday, she added.

The number of people infected with COVID-19 across the world has exceeded 26.1 million and the death toll has surpassed 867,000.

MH/PA