Iran launches vaccination campaign 

The Iranian government on Tuesday kicked off the country's COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which will use the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, to be used in the country. 

"We are starting the national vaccination against COVID-19," said Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who participated via video conference in the ceremony organised at the Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, where the health minister's son, Said Namaki, was the first to be vaccinated, according to the Iranian news agency Mehr. 

Before starting the vaccination programme, Rohani paid tribute to "the memory of the martyr health defenders", in reference to the health workers who have died in the fight against the pandemic in Iran.  

The health minister said the vaccination programme has kicked off in 635 health centres and they expect to vaccinate about 1.3 million Iranians before the end of the Persian year, which ends on 20 March.  

"The loved ones to be vaccinated today are doctors and nurses," Namaki said, adding that "people over 65 and people with chronic diseases" will be given priority for the first doses.  

Iran's Food and Drug Administration has assured that the country has purchased two million doses of Sputnik V and added that Tehran will receive 16 million doses through the COVAX mechanism, a tool that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has made available for developing countries to access vaccines. 

The conflict between Iran and the United States also reached the coronavirus vaccine. Despite being the most affected country in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic opted in early January to ban US and British vaccines. 

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who broke the news in a speech, said that US-produced vaccines, especially Pfizer's, "cannot be trusted". 

"The import of American and British vaccines into the country is forbidden (...) If the Americans had been able to produce a vaccine, the coronavirus would not have caused a disaster in their own country," the Iranian leader said.  

However, the Supreme Leader's veto does not involve the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine because, despite being British, the pharmaceutical company is also Swedish and the vaccine is produced in other countries such as India. This is also the case with the Pfizer vaccine in which the German company BioNtech has participated, but which has not been approved by the Iranian authorities.  

Ayatollah Khamenei went so far as to question the efficacy and safety of the messenger RNA-based vaccines, i.e. Pfizer's and Moderna's, claiming that there were medical reports that raised doubts.  

The Iranian health ministry's latest balance sheet indicated on Monday that 1,473,756 cases and 58,536 deaths from the coronavirus have been detected so far, including 7,321 infections and 67 deaths in the last 24 hours.  

On 29 December, the Iranian vaccine, CovIran Barekat, began clinical trials by injecting 21 volunteers. 

"It is a vaccine with few side effects, safe and effective and we are very hopeful that by next spring it will be available in the country in mass production," said the head of public relations at Iran's health ministry. 

On Saturday 30 January, a spokeswoman for the National Commission for Combating Coronavirus announced that Coviran Bakerat was also effective against the British and South African strains, according to the Iranian news agency Fars. 

Iran is cooperating with Cuba, which is also developing its own vaccine, Soberana 02, in the fight against the virus. Both countries are under US sanctions and have been cooperating in biotechnology for decades.