TEHRAN – The number of COVID-19 vaccines injected in the country has exceeded 100 million doses, despite all barriers and difficulties caused by sanctions.

Dealing with the pandemic has been a top priority for the Iranian government as vaccine imports have increased and vaccination has been accelerated.

In terms of domestic production of vaccines, Iran has also made efforts to develop a vaccine against the virus and could eventually make it, being the first Islamic country and among the world's few vaccine manufacturers.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, 14 vaccines are being domestically developed in the country, 3 of which have received the emergency use license so far, and are available to the public.

While Iran continues efforts to mass-produce local candidates, over 80 million doses of foreign vaccines have been imported to keep the population immune against the global pandemic despite all the barriers, and it was successfully achieved as over 100 million doses of vaccines have been injected into the people.

According to the latest statistics, so far, 56,135,524 people have received the first dose, 43,396,296 people the second dose, while 643,017 people are inoculated with the third dose, so that, the total number of jabs in the country surpassed 100,174,837 doses.

In the way to the vaccination of the whole population, many obstacles have shown up caused by U.S. sanctions, financial transactions, countries’ reluctance to provide Iran with the vaccine, or even competition among the nations to vaccine their own population sooner.

However, Iran could make it and inoculate over 50 percent of the population, being among the first sixty countries with the highest number of vaccinated people.

FB/MG