TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran outpaces Europe in first-dose COVID-19 vaccination. The national average for the first dose vaccination of people over the age of 12 was 82 percent in Iran, while it was 64 percent in Europe, Mohammad Mehdi Gooya, head of the diseases management center of the Ministry of Health, said.
The national average of the second dose of COVID-19 vaccination for the people aged 12 years and above was 65 percent in Iran; the national average of the first dose of vaccination for 12 to 18 year-olds was 83 percent, he said.
He went on to note that the national average of the second jab for children aged 12-18 years was 54 percent, IRNA reported on Tuesday.
Mobile vaccination clinics should be more active in high-risk areas for high-risk age groups, Gooya stated, adding, However, vaccination of the non-Iranian population is about 30 percent, which is still far from expectations.
The number of COVID-19 vaccines injected in the country has exceeded 100 million doses, despite all barriers and difficulties caused by sanctions.
According to the latest statistics, so far, 56,944,774 people have received the first dose, 45,382,073 people the second dose, while 833,605 people are inoculated with the third dose, so that, the total number of jabs in the country surpassed 103,160,452 doses.
In the way to the vaccination of the whole population, many obstacles have shown up caused by U.S. sanctions, financial transactions, countries’ reluctance to provide Iran with the vaccine, or even competition among the nations to vaccine their own population sooner.
However, Iran could make it and inoculate over 50 percent of the population, being among the first sixty countries with the highest number of vaccinated people.
Iran is one of the countries affected by the pandemic that has been able to widely implement vaccination programs in recent months and vaccinate refugees living in the country at the same time as Iranian nationals.
