Hassan Rouhani's promise: Everyone will be vaccinated by the end of July

On Wednesday, May 5, the Iranian President promised in general statements that "everyone" in Iran would be vaccinated by the end of July of this solar year.

Hassan Rouhani also announced the arrival of "tens of millions of vaccine doses in the coming weeks."

Without giving details, he only said that Iran has taken an "important step" on the path to a coronavirus vaccine and that "private companies have come forward and everyone will be vaccinated by the end of July."

Mr. Rouhani's promises came at a time when Jalil Koohpayehzadeh, president of the Iran University of Medical Sciences, announced that Tehran province alone needs 20 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

According to official statistics from the Ministry of Health, since the start of vaccination in Iran, with a population of over 80 million, as of May 4, a little over 1,314,000 doses of vaccine have been administered in the country, and the total amount of vaccine imported to Iran has been only 3,200,000 doses.

According to Alireza Raisi, spokesman for the National Headquarters for Combating Corona, to achieve collective immunity in Iran, people over the age of 18, who number about 64 million people, must be vaccinated, and for this purpose, 128 million doses of vaccine are needed.

In another part of his remarks, the Iranian President emphasized opening up the private sector to import the coronavirus vaccine, saying that this would allow "all people who are at risk to get vaccinated."

Mr. Rouhani did not specify under what conditions the private sector would be made available to citizens if it succeeded in importing the coronavirus vaccine to Iran, and whether all people at risk would be able to afford it.

It was previously said that with the approval of Hassan Rouhani, the issue of importing the coronavirus vaccine from the private sector had been raised and agreed upon.

Kianoush Jahanpour, head of the Food and Drug Administration in Iran, has made contradictory statements in this regard.

While he claims that private companies can procure vaccines from "sources that the government cannot afford to buy from," he says, "Most of the world's vaccines are bought and sold through government negotiations; therefore, many claims about the ability of private companies to buy vaccines are not true."

Along with much criticism of the management and control of the coronavirus disease, the import and distribution of the coronavirus vaccine, criticism of the import of this vaccine by the private sector has also increased.

Critics say that importing the coronavirus vaccine for foreign currency will fuel corruption and rent-seeking in this field.

The head of the Food and Drug Administration in Iran said, among other things, that the $4 vaccine was invoiced for $50, which is more than 12 times the actual price.

So far, 49 private companies have applied to import the coronavirus vaccine into Iran, of which 35 have been approved, but their names have not been announced.

In addition, there has been no detailed information on the domestic production of the coronavirus vaccine, and more has been done with slogans, generalizations, and exaggerations in this regard.

Continuing his speech, Hassan Rouhani also promised to "launch" a domestic coronavirus vaccine, without mentioning a specific time, adding: "We hope that tens of millions of doses of the vaccine will be available to the public in the coming weeks."

The Iranian President did not explain from which country these millions of vaccine doses are to be imported to Iran or which domestically produced vaccine has reached the stage of approval and mass production.

He only mentioned that his government's "goal" in the final months of its activity is to "lift sanctions and defeat Corona."

According to Rouhani, "The Central Bank has also announced that it will pay for the vaccine immediately."

This is despite Abbas Aghazadeh, the head of the General Assembly of the Medical System Organization, having previously said, "We did not take active and effective action regarding the provision of the required vaccine" and "waiting for domestic vaccine production has delayed Iran from the pace of the epidemic."

After the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei banned the import of vaccines made in the United States and Britain, Iranian authorities conducted extensive propaganda about the development of a coronavirus vaccine, which also led to disagreements within the Ministry of Health.

Source: Radio Farda