Coronavirus Infections Surpass 3 Million Mark

Iran’s tally of Covid-19 cases topped the three million mark on Thursday as the national vaccination drive slowed down due to shipment delays.
On Friday, nearly 10,000 confirmed cases of the infection were identified, taking the total number of cases to 3.013 million, ISNA reported.
Some 4.295 million have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 765,000 have been fully vaccinated. Postponed shipments of vaccine jabs have raised concerns over the timely injection of the second dose.
On Thursday, 100,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V were delivered to Tehran, enough to inoculate 50,000 more people.
Russia has shipped nearly one million vaccine shots to Iran, part of its agreement to gradually send two million doses. The two countries signed another deal in late April for the purchase of 60 million jabs that will be delivered by the end of the year.
Iran’s plan to jointly produce Sputnik V with Moscow is also underway and production is estimated to begin in the near future.
Over 30 countries are immunizing their population with Sputnik V, which has a 97.6% efficacy rate, according to a recent research conducted on 3.8 million people.
Iran has in total administered 5.06 million vaccine shots since it launched its vaccination campaign nearly four months ago. The country’s homegrown vaccines will obtain emergency use authorization in the coming days.

Daily Tally

The Health Ministry reported 124 deaths on Friday, bringing the disease’s toll to 81,796.
So far, over 2.6 million have recovered from the respiratory illness and roughly 3,500 are hospitalized in ICU units, in critical condition. 
Iran has carried out over 21.3 million diagnostic tests to detect infections in the past 16 months. 
Worldwide Covid-19 cases rose to 175.6 million on Friday and fatalities caused by the pandemic increased to 3.790 million.