East: Tens of millions of doses of Iranian coronavirus vaccine are in storage; there are no foreign customers either

On Monday, May 25, the Tehran-based newspaper "Sharq" reported that millions of doses of vaccines produced by domestic Iranian companies are in storage, with their expiration dates approaching and no domestic or foreign customers.

According to this report, Cinagen has six million, Pasteur three million, Razi four million, Nora 2.5 million, and Actovecor three million doses of vaccine on hand, the expiration date of which is about to expire.

Sharq further writes that the two vaccine manufacturers, Fakhra and Osweh, also did not provide information about the vaccines deposited in their warehouses, but all seven vaccine manufacturers are now complaining and recently appeared at a meeting of the Food and Drug Committee of the Parliament's Health Commission and opened their mouths to criticize the government: "They say that neither the domestic market is demanding the use of their vaccines, nor is there an export market for them."

The government itself has announced that it has stockpiled 50 million doses of domestically produced vaccine and that there is no need to purchase the vaccine.

Domestic vaccine manufacturers are complaining about the stagnation of their products and the lack of foreign customers, while none of these companies have received international approval for their vaccines, and even Iraq does not accept their vaccines from Iranian travelers.

Officials from vaccine manufacturing companies also said in a meeting with members of parliament on May 22 that due to lack of government support, the expiration dates of their vaccines are expiring.

Sharq Newspaper further writes that these seven producers say that if the government does not buy their vaccine, they will be "struck with silver and grounded," and the government should support them.

The report adds that this is the story of seven vaccine manufacturers for whom the government delayed vaccinations by about seven months.

The late move to import vaccines under the pretext of domestic production over the past year has led to repeated spikes in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country.

Iran's Ministry of Health claimed in September 2011 that the country would become a "pole" for exporting coronavirus vaccines in the region, but so far no country has shown any interest in purchasing Iranian vaccines.

On the other hand, this large number of injectable vaccines remain in the warehouses of Iranian companies and are approaching the end of their shelf life, while various countries have now moved towards producing inhaled vaccines.

The large volume of imported vaccines and domestically produced vaccines for which there are no customers, while the number of corona cases in the country is also declining, and as a result, the willingness to get vaccinated among Iranian citizens has also decreased.

According to the Ministry of Health, so far, about 64 million people have received the first dose, about 57 million the second dose, and about 27 million the third dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Recently, Hossein Safavi, head of the Ministry of Health's Foreign Exchange Savings Board of Trustees, said that the total amount of contracts with domestic vaccine producers was 8,656 billion tomans, and the Ministry of Health's debt to them was 5,300 billion tomans.

Haleh Hamedifar, CEO of Cinagene Company and producer of the Corona vaccine, told Shargh that although the parliament and the government ordered them to produce 18 million doses of the vaccine and they purchased the raw materials to produce this number of vaccines, the government ultimately refused to take delivery of this number of vaccines, and currently they have six million doses of the vaccine left in their warehouses.

Regarding the challenge of exporting Iranian vaccines, the manufacturer also says that the world market is saturated with vaccines that have World Health Organization approval, and the Iranian vaccine, which does not have global approval, has a more difficult path ahead.

Source: Radio Farda