TEHRAN – Iran is currently producing COVID-19 vaccines jointly with three countries of Cuba, Russia, and Australia, Mostafa Qanei, secretary of the biotechnology development office of the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, said on Monday.

One of the vaccines is the Cuban-Iranian Soberana-02 vaccine, and the other is the Russian-Iranian Gamaleya vaccine, he explained.

The third joint vaccine will be produced in Iran in cooperation with Australia, Qanei added, ISNA reported.

The COVIRAN BAREKAT vaccine will be available sooner than other domestic vaccines, and the Soberana-02 will also be mass-produced sooner than other jointly-developed vaccines, he noted.

COVIRAN BAREKAT, the first coronavirus vaccine made by researchers at the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam which was unveiled on December 29, 2020, started to be mass-produced on March 29.

BAREKAT vaccine will be released in mid-June, he stated, adding that the fourth homegrown vaccine "Osvid-19" produced by Osvah Pharmaceutical Company vaccine will also be available in early September.

Out of 16 vaccine production cases, four cases received a code of ethics and it is hoped that another three to four cases will succeed in receiving license by September, he concluded.

The second Iranian coronavirus vaccine, Razi Cov Pars, which started the clinical trial on February 27, will be mass-produced in early August. Fakhra vaccine, the third homegrown vaccine, was unveiled and started the clinical trial on March 16.

Iran started mass vaccination against COVID-19 with Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine on February 9; which is also going to be co-produced by the two countries.

Alireza Raeisi, spokesman for the National Headquarters for Coronavirus control said that so far, a total of 1,895,000 doses of vaccine has been delivered to the country, including, 420,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine from Russia, 650,000 doses of vaccine from China, 125,000 doses from India, 700,000 doses of Astrazeneca vaccine from South Korea (from the World Health Organization's COVAX facility).

According to the latest announcement of the Ministry of Health, 376,684 people have received the first dose of Corona vaccine and 121,803 people the second dose of the vaccine in Iran.

New cases and mortalities

In a press briefing on Monday, Health Ministry’s spokesperson Sima-Sadat Lari confirmed 24,346 new cases of COVID-19 infection, raising the total number of infections to 2,261,435. She added that 1,797,319 patients have so far recovered, but 4,843 remain in critical conditions of the disease.

During the past 24 hours, 398 patients have lost their lives, bringing the total number of deaths to 67,130, she added.

So far, 14,500,519 COVID-19 diagnostic tests have been performed in the country.

FB/MG