TEHRAN – Mass vaccination against COVID-19 will be soon accelerated, as it is planned to increase vaccination centers, and import more doses of the vaccine to the country, Alireza Raeisi, spokesman for the National Headquarters for Coronavirus control, has said.

“We plan to double the number of vaccination centers, which is about 1,008 by now,” Raeisi stated.

“In addition, we plan to operate most centers in two work shifts to increase the speed of vaccination and to surpass 1.5 million injections per day,” he added.

Fortunately, following the acceleration of the vaccination, about 5.5 million doses of vaccine were imported from China over the past 24 hours, he announced, IRNA reported on Thursday.

Iran planned to increase vaccination centers, and import more doses of the vaccine. He went on to in total, about 20 million doses of vaccine will be imported by the end of September, adding, about 30 million doses also will be delivered to the country since October.

Fortunately, domestic production has accelerated, so that we have received about 4 million doses of homegrown vaccines so far, he concluded.

Mass vaccination against COVID-19 started on Iranian citizens with the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine on February 9.

While Iran continues efforts to mass-produce local candidates, over 18 million doses of foreign vaccines have already been imported and others are expected soon.

Iran is also producing vaccines jointly with two countries of Cuba and Australia.

Homegrown vaccines

Made by researchers at the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, COVIRAN BAREKAT was unveiled on December 29, 2020, and received the license for public use on June 14.

It proved effective against Indian strain, according to Hojjat Niki-Maleki, head of the information center of Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam.

Eleven countries from Asia and South America, and a European country have asked for importing COVIRAN vaccine, Hassan Jalili, the vaccine’s production manager, said in June.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, 14 vaccines are being domestically developed in the country which are in different study phases.

Pastu Covac, developed jointly by the Pasteur Institute of Iran and Cuba's Finlay Vaccine Institute, is another homegrown vaccine, which has received the emergency use license, after COVIRAN.

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