The latest vaccine comes as Iran has secured 1.2 million jobs to bring the number to 80 million.
Tehran, Iran – Iran has begun human trials of Fakhravac, the third home-developed COVID-19 vaccine, named after nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in late November near Tehran in an attack which Tehran blamed the Israeli regional enemy.
Authorities at the time had said a team under Fakhrizadeh was working on a vaccine against the coronavirus, which has killed 61,000 people since an outbreak in the country in February 2020.
Fakhravac, previously described as the “Martyr Fakhrizadeh” vaccine, was announced at a concert broadcast live on state television. Defense Minister Amir Hatami, Health Minister Saeed Namaki, and the Fakhrizadeh family attended the event in Tehran.
The first dose was given to the son of the scientist, Hamed Fakhrizadeh, who volunteered.
“I must say today with pride that the Islamic Republic of Iran next spring will be one of the most important and best vaccine representatives in the world,” the health minister said during the ceremony on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, the leader of Setad, a powerful group working under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who is in charge of another vaccination project, said that the first vaccine production line in the country has started working.
Mohammad Mokhber said the line will deliver three million doses of COVIran Barekat – the country’s main vaccine candidate – per month, a potential that is expected to increase to up to 15 million doses per month by the end of spring.
The Barekat vaccine, which health officials say is 90 percent effective according to preliminary results, began the second phase of its human trials on Monday, and is expected to converge soon after the second and the third stage sees the vaccine to tens of thousands of Iranians.
Meanwhile, a vaccine developed by the Iranian Pasteur Institute in collaboration with Cuba is thought to be the first vaccine given in Iran among the population. 100,000 doses of the vaccine were introduced earlier in the week.
Razi COV-Pars, a vaccine developed by the Vaccine Research Institute and Razi Serum, is also undergoing human testing.
More foreign vaccines on the way
While Ioran continues efforts to persuade local candidates, a number of foreign vaccines have already been introduced and others are expected soon.
Up to 375,000 doses of COVAXIN, developed by Bharat Biotech of India, are expected on Wednesday and 125,000 doses of the same vaccine were received earlier this month.
With the 410,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V, 250,000 doses of Sinopharm supplied by China, and the 100,000 imported from Cuba, Wednesday’s delivery marks 1.26 million jobs imported .
On Tuesday, President Hassan Rouhani again condemned harsh U.S. economic sanctions on Iran which he said thwarted attempts to buy vaccines.
However, he said Iran had managed to buy “more than 16 million doses” through COVAX, the global vaccination campaign under the World Health Organization.
Health Minister Namaki said Tuesday that Iran hopes to get vaccinated on a significant portion of the country’s 1.3 million vulnerable people ahead of Nowruz, Iran’s new year, on March 20.
“But our hope does not lie in these imports, it lies in this national representation,” he said.