IRCS Procures 1m Covid Vaccine Doses From China

The Iranian Red Crescent Society imported the largest-ever shipment of Covid-19 vaccines to the country containing one million jabs manufactured by China on Sunday morning. 
“After much negotiation and deliberation, a flight carrying a batch of one million vaccine shots landed at Imam Khomeini International Airport this morning,” Mohammad Hassan Qosian Moqaddam, the society’s spokesman, was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Iran’s Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to the Red Crescent Society to import coronavirus vaccines in early April. The society has managed to procure 1.4 million shots since then. 
“The vaccines will be delivered to the Health Ministry,” Qosian Moghaddam said, noting that the organization will continue its efforts to import much-needed vaccines.
According to Iran’s Customs Administration, 3.195 million doses have so far arrived into the country, including 1.65 million from China, 125,000 from India, 730,000 from Russia and 780,000 jabs under COVAX from South Korea.
Over 956,000 Iranians have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 218,000 have been fully vaccinated, bringing the total of shots administered to 1.175 million.

Passing the Peak

Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced on Sunday that Iran has hit the peak of the fourth wave of the outbreak    and infections are expected to fall in the near future.
The minister said although the mutated virus was more aggressive and deadlier and hospitalizations surged by 2.5 times, the death rate was half that of the third wave.
The British strain of the coronavirus is the dominant variant in Iran with a prevalence of 70-90%. Authorities are concerned that the South African variant, said to be vaccine resistant, could trigger another surge. So far, only three cases of the African variant have been identified in Iran.
Some 18,700 people contracted the infectious disease on Sunday and 2,700 of them had developed severe symptoms that required admission to hospitals, data collected by the Health Ministry showed. 
The new cases took the national tally of cases to 2.534 million. The ministry also reported 394 overnight deaths, bringing the toll to 72,484. 
The worldwide tally of Covid-19 cases jumped to 153 million on Sunday and fatalities from the novel virus rose to 3.2 million.