Iran says it has allocated "one trillion tomans" in the 2020 budget to purchase coronavirus vaccines

Mojgan Khanloo, spokesperson for the 2020 budget, announced on Monday, December 7, a 138 percent increase in Iran's Ministry of Health funds next year, saying that one trillion tomans has been allocated to purchase the coronavirus vaccine.

This news comes at a time when Hamid Pourasghari, Deputy for Scientific, Cultural and Social Affairs of the Budget Planning Organization, had previously said that the purchase and import of foreign coronavirus vaccines does not have a separate line in the 2017 budget bill.

According to Pourasghari, however, a credit has been allocated for it in the category of medicines and powdered milk.

The 1400 budget spokesman announced the allocation of funds for the purchase of vaccines, while previously, Abdolnaser Hemmati, Governor of the Central Bank, had said that Iran needed permission from the US Treasury Department to transfer foreign currency related to the purchase of vaccines to the World Health Organization's account, and that this path "has encountered obstacles."

Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki also announced on December 25 that Iran plans to purchase 42 million doses of the vaccine through two contracts with foreign companies, but he did not mention how these contracts will be financed.

Health Ministry officials are announcing plans to purchase foreign vaccines at a time when clinical trials of two vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, have already passed their final stages, and many European countries, the United States, and Israel have pre-purchased doses of these vaccines.

Britain began its vaccination program on Tuesday, and Germany has announced that it will implement the program from January.

The Russian and Chinese vaccines that Iran hopes to purchase are still in the experimental stage.

Source: Radio Farda