Iran to Launch Vaccination Campaign This Week

Iran is set to begin its inoculation program against Covid-19 this week following the delivery of a first shipment of Russian-developed vaccines last Thursday.
“Healthcare providers, the elderly and individuals with pre-existing health conditions have been given priority to receive the injection,” President Hassan Rouhani was quoted as saying by on Saturday, President.ir reported.
Rouhani noted that with the next batches of vaccines on the way, a considerable number of people will be vaccinated before the start of the new Iranian year, which ends on March 20. 
“Right now, a limited number of vaccine doses have entered the country,” the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, said. “A new shipment of vaccines will arrive every two weeks.”
Iran has purchased Sputnik V to immunize its population against the respiratory illness, a vaccine manufactured by Russia, said to be 91.6% effective in preventing people from contracting the virus.
Lari noted, “We are taking measures to purchase Covid-19 vaccines from safe and reliable sources, same as other nations, until an Iranian vaccine reaches mass production.”
The spokesman for the National Coronavirus Taskforce, Alireza Raeisi, informed that among health personnel, ICU staff are a priority group to receive the vaccine.

Infections to Rise

Rouhani during Saturday’s meeting of the taskforce expressed concern over the decline in adherence to health protocols from 81% to 75%, pointing out that we should be expecting infections and deaths to increase over the next weeks.
On the same day, Raeisi announced that the number of cities color-coded as orange, one step below the highest alert level, have doubled across the country.
“Orange cities have increased from 18 to 36 … this is a warning sign,” the official said, adding that cities coded as yellow have also risen sharply from 130 to 178 but no city is on red alert yet.
Experts have cautioned against return to normalcy, estimating a fourth wave of infections to hit Iran before the new year.
An influx of coronavirus outpatients visiting hospitals in the province of Tehran is the first stage of another resurgence, followed by a rise in hospitalizations and deaths within a few weeks.
Iran reported 76 overnight deaths on Saturday, bringing the national toll to 58,412, Lari said.
“Over the past 24 hours, 6,983 new Covid-19 patients were identified,” the health official said. “Total number of confirmed cases rose to 1.459 million.”
Lari said more than 1.24 million have recovered from the infectious disease and 3,800 are in critical condition. 
“Iran has carried out over 9.6 million PCR tests since the start of the outbreak,” she said.
Worldwide Covid-19 cases increased to 106 million and the death toll reached 2.31 million.