TEHRAN – The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday authorized Spikogen coronavirus vaccines as a booster dose of all vaccines, deputy health minister Kamal Heydari has said.

The Iranian-Australian Spikogen vaccine joined the national vaccination process in November 2021.

The vaccine is licensed for the first and second doses in the age group of 18 to 50 years and for the third dose in all people over 18 years of age, Mehr quoted Heydari as saying.

The results of the human test showed that the vaccine provides more than 87 percent immunity, while it will be more precise after more research, Payam Tabarsi, a researcher of the project started in November.

Tabarsi went on to say that this vaccine did not show any serious or specific side effects in the second and third stages of a clinical trial, and can be used as a booster dose.

The first phase of the study was performed on volunteer Australians and received the necessary approval, the second phase was administrated to 400 Iranians, which has had no serious side effects, Tabarsi said.

According to the latest statistics, so far, 60,269,896 people have received the first dose, 53,018,325 people the second dose, and 11,000,974 people are inoculated with the third dose.

Health Minister Bahram Einollahi has said five coronavirus vaccines have been so far produced domestically.

Iran is one of the few countries that has all vaccine production platforms, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said in June 2021.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) representative to Iran Jaffar Hussain said in September 2021 that the Organization was collecting the necessary information for the registration and certification of Iranian-made coronavirus vaccines.

Iran has also produced vaccines jointly with two countries of Cuba and Russia.

FB/MG