Amir Abdollahian: We Were Gifted Two Million Vaccine Doses Last Week; We Will Send Them to Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan
Iran’s Foreign Minister announced on Sunday, December 10, that one country gifted Iran two million doses of vaccine last week, which Tehran will send to Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Hossein Amir Abdollahian did not name the vaccine-donating country, but Iran halted foreign vaccine imports on November 5, and since then, according to official information, Italy has donated one million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Iran.
Seyyed Rouhollah Latifi, spokesman for the Customs Administration, also said on December 5 that two shipments totaling 2.4 million doses of Chinese Sinovac vaccine entered the country.
Iran’s Foreign Minister said in his Sunday remarks: “Last week, a country proposed sending two million vaccine doses to Iran. Health Ministry officials announced that warehouses are full and there is no capacity to receive it. We accepted the gift and will use the surplus in the region, including Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan.”
Amir Abdollahian’s remarks about full warehouses come at a time when many Iranians have been waiting to receive the third dose of AstraZeneca vaccine, and the government has asked people to use domestically-produced vaccines for this dose.
According to customs statistics, Iran has so far imported over 152 million doses of foreign vaccine, 88 percent of which has been Sinovac vaccine, while 13 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, mostly donations from other countries, have also entered the country.
The import of 152.5 million vaccine doses comes while, according to official Health Ministry statistics, less than 122 million doses of domestic and foreign vaccines have been administered in the country by Sunday, December 10.
Iranian officials have not yet reported what they have done with the remaining imported vaccines, but many reports have been published about the vaccination of Hezbollah members in Lebanon and other regional militias by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Source: Radio Farda
