Iranian Health Ministry official: Promise to import 20 million Pfizer vaccines is empty talk

On Monday, September 1, Kianoush Jahanpour, head of the Ministry of Health's Public Relations Center, denied the news of the possibility of importing 40 million doses of the vaccine through the COVAX plan, describing it as "emptiness."

Mr. Jahanpour wrote on his Twitter page that "Iran's share from the COVAX mechanism is 16.8 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine, of which 2.2 million have been ordered and delivered."

This comment is a response to news that Nasser Riahi, head of the Drug Importers Union, had previously announced, saying that "the possibility of importing up to 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine through Germany and 20 million doses of the American Johnson & Johnson vaccine from Belgium has been considered for Iran under the COVAX plan."

The head of the Ministry of Health's Public Relations Center emphasized in his tweet that "If you hear that 20 million doses of a specific vaccine from Covax can be provided, you are faced with a shortage, do not take it seriously!"

The issue of coronavirus vaccines has been a controversial topic in Iran for months. In January 2020, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei banned the purchase of British and American vaccines.

At the same time, the "Imam's Decree Executive Headquarters", which operates under the supervision of the Leader of the Islamic Republic, began extensive propaganda about the widespread production of the Iranian Barakat vaccine, and Kianoush Jahanpour was one of the officials at the Ministry of Health who played a major role in this propaganda.

However, the inability of this headquarters to mass produce an effective vaccine and the ban on importing Western vaccines to Iran caused the death toll from the coronavirus in Iran to increase sharply over the past month, until the Leader of the Islamic Republic was finally forced to announce that the vaccine would be provided by any means.

Currently, the Iranian government is mainly using Chinese vaccines from Sinopharm and has tried to reduce the death toll by speeding up the vaccination process.

Source: Radio Farda