Largest shipment of Covid-19 vaccines, 2 million doses, set to arrive in Tehran

The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has announced that two million doses of Covid-19 vaccines will arrive in Iran on Thursday, in the fourth and largest shipment of lifesaving jabs.

The spokesman for the IRCS, Mohammad-Hassan Ghossian, announced on Thursday that two million Covid-19 shots would arrive in Iran that same day, but did not elaborate on their source. He said they would be delivered to officials at the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. 

This is the fourth shipment arranged by the IRCS, delivering lifesaving vaccines to Iran, a country that has perpetually struggled to hold back the virus. According to the semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr, the IRCS’ previous three deliveries include 2.4 million shots in total. Ghossian said it was hoped that the IRCS could continue to serve and protect Iran’s noble people during the pandemic.

Mehr states that, to date, Iran has given a single Covid-19 shot to 4,364,228 people while only 878,694 citizens have received both doses. Tehran still has a long way to go in order to vaccinate its 82 million people against the virus. 

Iran has received and used vaccines from a variety of sources, including AstraZeneca, Sputnik, and Sinopharm. On June 7, Alireza Naji, the head of Iran’s Virology Research Center and member of the Covid Scientific Committee, hit out at Chinese and Russian suppliers for not honoring their commitments to deliver vaccines. 

On Sunday, Iran granted approval to one of its indigenously developed vaccines. It has been reported that the country has already made 3 million doses of the COVIran Barekat shot. 

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