TEHRAN – Influenza vaccines have been provided free of charge to some 80,000 people under the coverage of the Welfare Organization, the head of the Organization has announced.

The Ministry of Health is implementing a national plan aiming to provide two million doses of influenza vaccines for at-risk groups such as the elderly, transplant patients, cardiopulmonary patients, and pregnant women to reduce COVID-19 effects.

According to the national plan on influenza vaccination, the distribution of vaccine is the responsibility of the University of Medical Sciences in different provinces, Vahid Qobadi Dana stated.

Personnel and the elderly living in daycare centers as well as the physically disabled in the Welfare Organization are in priority, he highlighted.

He went on to note that up to 80,000 people who are in welfare organization’s care centers are eligible to receive free vaccines.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 and the observance of health protocols such as social distancing, personal hygiene, disinfection of hands, and use of masks, the flu infection will be much lower than the previous years. Therefore, vaccination is not necessary for the whole population, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, head of the Food and Drug Administration, said.

In the press briefing on Sunday, Health Ministry spokesperson Sima-Sadat Lari confirmed 3,362 new cases of COVID-19 infection, raising the total number of infections to 446,448. She added that 374,170 patients have so far recovered, but 4,059 still remain in critical conditions of the disease.

In the past 24 hours, 195 patients have lost their lives, bringing the total number of deaths to 25,589, she added.

Lari noted that so far 3,932,571 COVID-19 tests have been conducted across the country.

She said the high-risk “red” zones include provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, East Azarbaijan, South Khorasan, Semnan, Qazvin, Lorestan, Ardebil, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Gilan, Bushehr, Zanjan, Ilam, Khorasan Razavi, Mazandaran, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, Alborz, West Azarbaijan, Markazi, Kerman, North Khorasan, Hamedan, and Yazd.

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