Iran Makes Strides In Talks On Domestic Vaccine Production With Other Countries - Ministry

TEHRAN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2020) Iran has made good progress in negotiating domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines with several countries, Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari has told Sputnik.

According to the official, Tehran pursues three avenues of obtaining a vaccine, the first of them being purchasing vaccines from sources vetted by the World Health Organization.

"The second track is negotiations with manufacturers in other countries, within this track we are aiming to produce [a vaccine] in the country and receive technologies [for that]. We have made good progress with several countries," the spokeswoman said, without giving any specifics.

The third track is to manufacture Iran's own vaccine based on the country's know-how.

On Wednesday, the country's health and medical education minister, Saeed Namaki, said that Iran was planning to get 41 million doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease through different channels for approximately 20 million people. Namaki elaborated that Tehran was thinking about receiving 16.8 million doses via the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX), 5.5 million doses under a joint production agreement with pharmaceutical companies and about 20 million doses from an international manufacturer.