IRCS Meets Commitments on Vaccine Importation

The Iranian Red Crescent Society fulfilled its commitment to bring in 112 million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine by the end of October as part of national efforts to curb the Covid-19 outbreak.
Karim Hemmati, head of the organization, announced that the last six million shots of the vaccines arrived in Tehran on Sunday morning, ISNA reported.
“We managed to meet our obligations which helped significantly reduce coronavirus death rates,” he added.
According to Hemmati, the IRCS began imports from China in April when Iran was facing an acute shortage of Covid vaccines. The organization brought in 112.390 million jabs over the past seven months.
Head of Covid-19 operations in the capital of Tehran, Alireza Zali, also noted on Sunday that unvaccinated individuals are nine times more likely to be hospitalized in ICU units or die.
“The data demonstrates that vaccination significantly reduces mortalities,” he said. 
Vaccine rollout accelerated across the country at the end of summer when the IRCS began importing batches of five to six million shots on a weekly basis.
The Health Ministry gave out more than one million vaccines over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of shots administered to 87 million. 
Out of its population of 85 million people, some 52.6 million Iranians have received a first dose and 34.4 million have received both shots. Iran is also giving booster shots to those most at risk of contracting the virus, starting with healthcare personnel. 
Asked about the sixth peak of the pandemic, Zali pointed out that following safety measures can reduce the chances of another resurgence. 
“Considering the effectiveness of vaccination, we hope we don’t enter the sixth wave. If we do, we hope vaccinations can keep severe cases and fatalities to a minimum,” the official said.
Iran on Sunday registered 177 overnight deaths and 8,400 newly identified infections.