Tehran on Monday unveiled its second anti-coronavirus vaccine project developed in Iran, on the eve of the start of the vaccination campaign in this country most affected by the pandemic in the Near and Middle East.
• Read also: [EN DIRECT 8 FÉVRIER] All the developments of the pandemic
“We will start the trials in the next few days or a week at the latest,” Massoud Soleimani, member of Iran’s national vaccine committee, said in a press conference.
According to Soleimani, the “Razi Cov Pars” vaccine was designed at the Razi Institute for Vaccine and Serum Research, linked to the Iranian Ministry of Agriculture.
At the start of the first phase of clinical trials, “13 volunteers aged 18 to 55” will receive an injection, he added.
The statement comes the day after Iran’s Minister of Health Said Namaki announced that the COVID-19 vaccination campaign with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine would begin on Tuesday.
The first batches of the Russian vaccine arrived in Tehran on Thursday, and two more are expected by February 18 and 28, according to Iranian officials.
The Islamic Republic has bought a total of “two million doses” of Russian vaccine, Kianouche Jahanpour, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, told AFP on Saturday.
“Health workers will be the first to receive the vaccine,” followed by the elderly and people with chronic diseases, according to the authorities.
In addition to the Sputnik V vaccine, Iran will receive from the Anglo-Swedish group AstraZeneca “in February 4.2 million doses of vaccine via Covax”, a device intended to provide vaccines to the most disadvantaged countries, according to the Minister of Health, Saïd Namaki.
COVID-19 has killed more than 58,500 out of more than 1.4 million people infected in Iran, according to the Ministry of Health.
At the end of December, the Islamic Republic had started clinical trials of its first vaccine.