The Governor of Central Bank of Iran Abdolnasser Hemmati said the bank has made the advance payment for importing Covid-19 vaccine.
In a note on his social media account late Tuesday, he said the money was “deposited with a World Health Organization account via two Iranian banks and three European banks on the first working day of January.”
He did not elaborate on the amount. Earlier he had said that the CBI would “pay €200 million to buy 16.8 million doses of the vaccine from Covax”.
Covax is global initiative operating under WHO which brings together governments and manufacturers to ensure eventual Covid-19 vaccines reach those in greatest need. The initiative strives for fair and equitable distribution of vaccine doses. Iran announced in October that it had joined Covax.
In recent weeks the vaccine payment has been in the limelight with government officials complaining that they have difficulty transferring money due to banking sanctions unleashed by the United States under Donald Trump.
Hemmati described the process of money transfer to the UBS bank of Switzerland, in which the Covax has an account, a “complicated process”.
He said the payment was made despite risks posed by the US sanctions. In the past weeks he expressed concern that the US may seize the money during the transfer process.
The CBI has earmarked “lot more currency for purchasing the Covid vaccine and is waiting for the Health Ministry’s approval” to move ahead, he said.
Apart from efforts to buy foreign vaccine, Iran has started human trials of domestically-made vaccine and hopes to start mass production by the end of spring, health officials have reported.
With the death toll nearing 56,000 and infections exceeding 1.26 million, Iran is struggling to curb the deadly disease. The death toll and infections have declined in recent days thanks to lockdowns to control the spread of the virus that has hammered livelihoods and economies across the world.
