Tehran, SAEDNEWS, Dec. 30: On the first day of the Iranian COVID vaccine human trial, the Minister of Health and Medical Education Saeed Namaki said: " Today will be one of the most promising days for the Iranian nation. With the efforts and follow-ups of our colleagues and scientists on COVID-19, we were able to make the first injection into humans by going through the steps, studies, and models they went through."
The first human injection of the first phase of clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured and produced by domestic researchers at the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order (EIKO), entitled “COVO-Iran Barakat,” was carried out on Tuesday.
The COVID-19 outbreak is a global crisis. The difficulty of dealing with the outbreak became more tangible due to the harsh US sanctions on Iran. The United States also tried to prevent Iran from gaining access to the medicine and medical equipment needed to treat the patients. They even prevented the dispatching of the flu vaccine to Iran when it was purchased. The enemies of the Iranian nation have used every means to strike Iran. How to deal with this virus is in fact a test for governments and nations, and Iran has shown that it will not give in to problems.
Iran pursues the supply of COVID vaccine in three ways:
One way is to import vaccines from where the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated for all countries. Several well-known companies are currently using the vaccine. WHO approved the Oxford and Moderna vaccines. Iran has pre-purchased 16.8 million doses of vaccine for 8.4 million people from vulnerable groups, taking into account that each person must get two vaccine doses.
The second way is to buy the vaccine from other reputable sources, and in this regard, Iran is negotiating.
Another way to get the COVID-19 vaccine is through co-production. In this project, Iran has entered the joint vaccine production phase at Iran's Pasteur Institute with one of the world's technology owners. Iran has about 100 years of experience in producing vaccines and has exported vaccines to many countries in the world and the region. In the face of COVID-19, Iranian scientists and specialists' most important goal is to produce vaccines in the country.
In this regard, all capacities have been used, and the national determination in Iran is to overcome the problems and turn this threat into an opportunity. These efforts are now bearing fruit, and the production of the Iranian COVID vaccine is being monitored step by step by WHO, which has approved the production and clinical trial phases.
It is expected that with the start of the human trial phase, Iran will be one of the leading producers of vaccines in the region and will meet the needs of the country early next Iranian year (beginning on March 21) (Source: Iran Press).