President Rouhani: Iran capable of developing domestic COVID-19 vaccine
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday said the country would be able to develop and mass-produce the coronavirus vaccine thanks to the efforts made by its scientists.
Relying on the expertise and technological capability of its scientists and possessing the necessary infrastructure, Iran would be able to develop and mass-produce the COVID-19 vaccine, President Rouhani stressed, IRNA reported.
Addressing a meeting of specialized committees of the National Task Force for Fighting the Coronavirus, he noted, in order to ensure people’s health standards, the government would benefit from domestic potentials and has also taken effective measures to purchase vaccines from countries that have succeeded to develop a safe vaccine sooner.
Iran Food and Drug Administration (IFDA) said that the country has taken giant strides since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in December 2020 to contain the disease and develop its vaccine.
IFDA’s spokesman has said earlier this month that five Iranian vaccines were included in the list of candidates of coronavirus vaccine of the World Health Organization (WHO).
“So far, five Iranian vaccines have been included in World Health Organization’s list of candidates of COVID-19 vaccine,” Kianoush Jahanpour tweeted on November 14.
US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced earlier in November that their prospective vaccine had proven 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 infections in ongoing final phase trials involving more than 40,000 people.
However, a top World Health Organization’s expert warned in an interview with AFP that public distrust risked rendering even the most effective treatments useless against the pandemic.
"A vaccine that sits in a freezer or in a refrigerator or on a shelf and doesn't get used is doing nothing to help shorten this pandemic," said Kate O'Brien, director of the World Health Organization's immunization department, AFP reported.
Source: Iran Daily