TEHRAN – Some 72 percent of Iranians have expressed readiness to receive the domestically-made coronavirus vaccine, Kianoush Jahanpour, head of the Information Center of the Ministry of Health, said on Wednesday.

Also, 60 percent of people have hopes for the production of Iranian vaccines, 40 percent do not trust foreign vaccines, and 53 percent say that if the Ministry of Health approves the foreign vaccine, they will receive it, Jahanpour added, referring to a recent survey.

Production of COVID-19 vaccine was followed by 16 Iranian companies since the beginning of the outbreak, and so far 12 companies applied to produce the vaccine, of which eight are operating, one of the companies have entered the human trial phase, and two more companies will soon test the vaccines on human, Jahanpour said on Tuesday.

COVIRAN BAREKAT, the first coronavirus vaccine made by Iranian researchers of the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, was unveiled and injected into three volunteers during a ceremony on December 29, 2020.

On Tuesday, the second dose of the vaccine was injected into three volunteers.

So far, 14 people received the first dose of the vaccine, and this number should reach 56 people in the clinical study phase.

After the results of the study are determined, the second stage begins with the injection in 500 people, and after 28 days, the third phase begins with mass production.

Hojjat Niki-Maleki head of the information center of Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, said by the next six months, vaccine production will reach up to 12 million doses per month.

COVID-19 daily new cases and mortalities

In a press briefing on Wednesday, Health Ministry spokesperson Sima-Sadat Lari confirmed 6,317 new cases of COVID-19 infection, raising the total number of infections to 1,305,339. She added that 1,094,388 patients have so far recovered, but 4,469 remain in critical conditions of the disease.

During the past 24 hours, 97 patients have lost their lives, bringing the total number of deaths to 56,457, she added.

So far, 8,316,375 COVID-19 diagnostic tests have been performed in the country.

Lari noted that currently, 7 cities are in high-risk “red” zones, and 30 cities are in the orange zone and 219 in low-risk “yellow” zones.

FB/MG