At Current Pace, Iran’s COVID-19 Vaccination Will Not be Completed in 2021
The head of Iran’s Society of Internal Medicine Specialists said on Monday, May 24, that due to vaccine shortages, Iran’s vaccination program will not be completed in 2021.
Iraj Khosrovaniya, head of the Society of Internal Medicine Specialists, also told the Mehr news agency that with the current pace and given that the country’s population aged 40 to 50 is estimated at more than 20 million people, “we cannot vaccinate all eligible individuals this year.”
Nevertheless, he described the current pace of vaccinating the elderly as “acceptable” and said this prioritization is a global practice.
Simultaneously, the Deputy Minister of Treatment at the Ministry of Health announced that “based on forecasts, the vaccination of people over 60 years of age in Iran will be completed within one month or by the first half of Tir month (June-July).”
COVID-19 vaccination in Iran started with a delay compared to many other countries, one reason being the failure to fulfill Iranian officials’ promises about producing an Iranian vaccine.
Janbabaei, Deputy Health Minister, like statements from other officials, particularly the Health Minister in recent months, again spoke of “good and promising news in the field of domestic vaccine production” but provided no details about it.
This comes as, according to official statistics from the Ministry of Health, the official death toll from coronavirus has reached nearly 79,000 people.
According to the official report of this ministry, in the last 24 hours, 251 more Iranians with COVID-19 have died, and more than 11,000 new patients have been identified in the country, with 1,605 of them hospitalized.
Based on these official statistics, which according to some officials and other institutions differ significantly from actual figures, the total number of COVID-19 patients in Iran has reached nearly 2 million and 900,000 people.
Currently, at least 4,753 COVID-19 patients are under care in intensive care units of hospitals, and the greatest concern about them is related to a nationwide power outage in Iran, whose consequences have also affected some medical centers and patients connected to oxygen devices in their homes.
According to the Health Ministry report, so far 2 million, 608 thousand, and 182 people have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine, and 460 thousand and 853 people have also received the second dose, bringing the total number of vaccine doses administered to 3 million, 69 thousand, and 35 doses.
Iran’s population in 2020 was estimated at more than 83 million people.
Source: Radio Farda
