Iranians to See Homegrown Vaccine Rollout by Weekend

Iran’s Food and Drug Administration announced that millions of locally-produced coronavirus vaccines will hit the market this week after the vaccines are granted emergency use authorization by the Health Ministry. 
Iran is set to begin inoculating its population with two homegrown vaccines by the end of the week, head of Iran’s FDA, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Both local vaccines are undergoing phase three of human trials. COV-Iran Barekat was developed by Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order and Pasteurcovac is the fruit of a joint production between Pasteur Institute of Iran and the state-owned Finlay Institute of Vaccines in Cuba.
Shanehsaz also noted that three million vaccine jabs are to be delivered to Iran through free trade zones in the near future.
According to the Health Ministry, over 4.327 million people have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 827,000 have been fully vaccinated against the infections disease, bringing the total number of doses administered to 5.154 million. 
Shanehsaz estimated that 70% of Iranians will be injected with a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of autumn. Iran is targeting to immunize its population of 80 million people by March 2022. 
The country has vaccinated healthcare personnel, disabled veterans and some other high-risk groups, and it is currently injecting those over the age of 70 with the vaccines imported from Russia, China, India, South Korea and Italy.

Fatalities Drop 

The Covid-19 outbreak is one the decline throughout the country, with the Health Ministry recording a 20% fall in the death toll in the past week.
Data collected by the health authority also showed a 10.5% drop in hospitalizations and a 17% decline in positive cases over the past week.
The death toll from the outbreak reached 82,098 as of Sunday, up by 187 from the previous day. Daily infections rose by 8,195 to a total of 3.028 million. 
At least 13 cities across the country are on red alert and 208 have been color-coded as orange. The only four provinces not on a downward trend are Hormozgan, Kerman, Bushehr and Sistan-Baluchestan. 
Health officials have warned that eastern and southern provinces should exercise vigilance to prevent the spread of new strains of the virus entering from India and Pakistan.
Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus around the world rose to 176.4 million and fatalities caused by the infection increased to 3.812 million.