Iran in Talks With Russia, China and India to Purchase Covid-19 Vaccines

Iran is negotiating with India, Russia and China to buy Covid-19 vaccines, although unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States have prevented any transaction, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
Sima Sadat Lari, the ministry’s spokeswoman, told reporters on the sidelines of a provincial coronavirus taskforce meeting that they have received promising news on vaccine imports in the past few days, IRNA reported.
She added, “But due to US sanctions, foreign exchange transactions and even Iran’s payment for membership in the COVAX initiative are facing challenges.”
COVAX is a global initiative aimed at providing nations with equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines. Iran has preordered 16.8 million vaccine shots through the initiative, enough to immunize 18.4 million of its population.
Lari said, “We have the necessary funds to buy the coronavirus vaccine but the transactions have been delayed because of the sanctions.”
Iran is also purchasing 21 million doses from one of the few manufacturing companies that have successfully developed vaccines that could put an end to the global pandemic.
Updating the status of local vaccines in the pipeline, the spokeswoman said, “There are currently four domestic firms racing to manufacture an Iranian Covid-19 vaccine.”
She added that so far, only one of these companies has been authotized to launch human trials.
“If the results are promising, we estimate that the vaccine can be used to immunize high-risk groups by June,” she added.
However, once the vaccine is procured, the government will prioritize 20% of the country’s population for inoculation, including those exposed to the virus and high-risk groups.

Uptick in Overnight Deaths

The Health Ministry reported a slight increase in daily deaths on Monday with 251 fatalities, compared to 247 a day earlier, bringing the national toll to 52,447, the spokeswoman said.
“Over the past 24 hours, 7,500 new Covid-19 patients were detected, pushing the tally to 1.115 million,” she said.
Lari said Iran has administered 6.75 million PCR tests since the start of the pandemic, adding that daily testing capacity has in recent weeks risen from 20,000 to 50,000
“Over 823,000 have recovered from Covid-19 and 5,711 are in critical condition,” she said.
According to the health official, the number of red, orange and yellow cities have reached 12, 288 and 148, respectively. 
Coronavirus cases around the world jumped to 72.74 million on Monday and fatalities reached 1.62 million.