Iran develops its own vaccine and launches clinical trials

The vaccine developed by Iran, the country most affected by the pandemic in the Middle East, began the clinical trial phase on Tuesday, state television announced. Tehran hopes to have it ready by spring 2021.   

COVID-19 has infected 1.2 million people in the Islamic Republic, of whom nearly 55,000 died. The vaccine has been financed by The Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order (EIKO), a state economic conglomerate whose president is directly appointed by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.  

The vaccine promoted by the EIKO, called COVIRAN, has been endorsed by the Iranian Ministry of Health and meets the requirements of the World Health Organization (WHO). Production capacity will be 1.5 million over the next forty days and will reach twelve million monthly doses in the next six months.  

On Tuesday, state television broadcast images of the first vaccinations in which three volunteers were shown, in the presence of the Health Minister, Said Namaki, and the Vice President of Science and Technology, Sorena Sattari. The daughter of EIKO Director Mohamad Mojber was the first to be vaccinated, followed by two senior EIKO officials.  

According to data provided by Mojber, 60,000 Iranians volunteered, 56 of whom will eventually take part in the trial by receiving two separate doses over the next two weeks. The result will be known 28 days after the second injection, an Iranian official told Iribnews.

The Health Minister said that another vaccine will be approved "in the very near future" to begin human trials. He also announced that they plan to immunise 20 million citizens with the purchase of 41 million doses of other vaccines, of which 16.8 million have already been purchased through Covax, a mechanism created by the WHO to facilitate access to the vaccine for less developed countries. The Iranian Red Crescent Society will receive one million doses from China.

Iranian authorities have criticised the fact that US sanctions make it difficult to buy vaccines. Although food and medicine are exempt, international banks tend to reject transactions involving Iran in order to avoid potential litigation.

President Hassann Rohani was angry on Saturday over the US decision to require that all transfers of Iranian funds for the purchase of coronavirus vaccines go through US banks. Rohaní fears that they will take advantage of the situation to confiscate this money.   

“We wanted to transfer the funds from the country where our money is” for the purchase of the vaccine and “this country has accepted,” said Rohani, without naming the country in question. “ The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury (OFAC)” initially said “there was no problem”, Rohaní said, but it “later said that the money should go through the American bank before being transferred “to purchase the vaccine", Rohani added.

According to Rohaní, this could result in the purchase being more expensive and arriving late, something they cannot afford considering that in the last 24 hours there have been 150 deaths, 6,272 new cases and 5,087 people in critical condition.  

The country has long been in the throes of a serious economic crisis and shortages of medicines are commonplace. Sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration have exacerbated the country's decline.