TEHRAN – Some 98 percent of people aged over 80 in the country have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, Farshid Rezaei, a health ministry official, has said.

About 65 percent of the country’s population has been vaccinated with the second dose, while, a booster dose of the vaccine has been well received nationwide, he said.

Expressing satisfaction with the process of vaccination of students over 12 years old in the country, he said that some 85 to 90 percent of students aged 12 and above have been inoculated.

About 65 percent of the country’s population has been vaccinated with the second dose. With the injection of the third dose of a vaccine, people are safe against this strain and it becomes difficult for Omicron to infect them, he concluded.

In November 2021, Mohammad Mehdi Gooya, head of the diseases management center of the Ministry of Health, said that the national average for the first dose vaccination of people over the age of 12 was 82 percent in Iran, while it was 64 percent in Europe.

The national average of the second dose of COVID-19 vaccination for the people aged 12 years and above was 65 percent in Iran, while the national average of the first dose of vaccination for the 12-18-year age group was 83 percent.

He went on to note that the national average of the second jab for children aged 12-18 years was 54 percent.

According to the latest statistics, so far, 59,909,150 people have received the first dose, 52,140,405 people the second dose, while 8,373,467 people are inoculated with the third dose, so that, the total number of jabs in the country surpassed 120,423,022 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 the population, being among the first sixty countries with the highest number of vaccinated people.

Iran is one of the countries affected by the pandemic that has been able to widely implement vaccination programs in recent months and vaccinate refugees living in the country at the same time as Iranian nationals.

FB/MG