TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as one of the self-financing participant countries of the COVAX Facility, has received the first batch of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine with 700,800 doses.
Kianoush Jahanpour, the head of the Health Ministry’s public relations department, tweeted that the vaccines have been produced by South Korea and were sent to Iran from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
He said the batch arrived in Tehran with two to three weeks of delay.
He said 3,600,000 out of 16,800,000 doses of COVAX vaccines purchased by Iran are expected to arrive in Iran by the end of May.
The COVAX Facility is a partnership co-led by Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi-The Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO), alongside key delivery partner United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The consignment is the first COVAX shipment to the country, with future consignments of the approved allocation of COVID vaccines to be delivered in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of the Islamic Republic of Iran through the UNICEF procurement channel.
The AstraZeneca vaccines for the I.R. of Iran, manufactured by SK-Bio Institute of South Korea, landed at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport on Monday, 5 April 2021, and were received by the representatives of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of the Islamic Republic of Iran in presence of the WHO and UNICEF technical teams.Achieving this important milestone aimed at ensuring the global goal of equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across the world through the COVAX facility is the key priority for WHO and partners.
