TEHRAN - Pastu Covac vaccine, developed jointly by the Pasteur Institute of Iran and Cuba's Finlay Vaccine Institute, has been added to the country’s basket of vaccines against coronavirus, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, head of the Iranian Food and Drug Administration, has said.

The first part of a whole six million doses of Pastu Covac, agreed by the two institutes, has been received and distributed, IRIB quoted Shanehsaz as saying on Tuesday.

Pastu Covac is one of the safest vaccines available for injection in children aged 2-18, Alireza Biglari, head of the Pasteur Institute said last month.

He went on to say that the Ministry of Health will announce the plan to inject the vaccine into children within the next two weeks.

The study of Pastu Covac (called Soberana 02 in Cuba) was performed in Cuba on children and the emergency use license has been obtained, he added.

The results of the study showed that this vaccine should be injected in adults with a booster dose, but in children, a third dose is not needed and 2 doses are enough to achieve immunization, he highlighted.

Pastu Covac vaccine is a conjugate vaccine with two injectable doses. It consists of the receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein conjugated chemically to tetanus toxoid.

The two first phases of the human trial have been conducted in Cuba, while the third phase was carried out on 24,000 volunteers in Iran and 44,000 volunteers in Cuba.

It is the only vaccine in the world that can fight several mutations simultaneously, Biglari said in July.

MG