In comments at a meeting of the Administration’s Economic Coordination Headquarters on Sunday, the president said 13 million people in the priority groups will be vaccinated against COVID-19 by July 22.
He also noted that the vaccination daily rate is going to rise according to the Health Ministry’s program.
The president reiterated that the purchase, supply and production of coronavirus vaccines has been the top priority for the Health Ministry, the Central Bank of Iran, and the Budget and Planning Organization.
The administration’s high-priority policy is to develop homegrown vaccines, Rouhani noted, adding that the demands will be satisfied with the foreign vaccines before the mass production of local products.
Last week, the Iranian Red Crescent Society took delivery of the largest shipment of the coronavirus vaccine that the country has imported since the outbreak of the pandemic in February 2020, including one million doses of vaccine provided by the Red Cross Society of China.
Iran has already granted emergency use authorization to Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine, Covaxin made by India’s Bharat Biotech, Oxford/AstraZeneca developed by Russia’s R-Pharm Group, and the AstraZeneca-SKBio made in South Korea.
More than 1,378,000 Iranians have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine so far, mainly health society personnel and the elderly above 80.