Rayeesi said on Wednesday that around 1.3 million people will be inoculated against COVID-19 by early next month when the government plans to announce the end of the first phase of vaccinations.

Iran estimates that some 13.3 million people will be immunized against COVID-19 during the second phase. The population includes six million people who are above 65 and those between 16 and 64 who have at least one underlying condition.

The nationwide vaccination campaign against COVID 19 began in Iran in late December after the country took delivery of a first batch of Sputnik V vaccines from Russia. The campaign has also used jabs developed in China and India although some shipments have failed to make it into the country because of tight supplies in the countries of origin.

Rayeesi said ending the first round of vaccinations, which has covered frontline healthcare workers and people with very high risk of catching COVID-19, had been made possible after Iran received a shipment of 700,000 vaccines from COVAX, an international vaccine project sponsored by the World Health Organization.

Iran has placed orders for 16.8 million doses of vaccines under COVAX despite restrictions facing the country because of US sanctions which make it almost impossible to transfer funds through the international banking system.

Iran would need 29.5 million vaccine doses to finish the second round of inoculations and authorities hope they would be able to use home-made jabs to deliver on the job

A major Iranian factory mandated to produce the country’s main coronavirus vaccine (COV-Iran) is nearly ready as officials promise it would reach a production capacity of 12-15 million doses per month in late June.

Head of the COV-Iran Barekat vaccine project at the Headquarters for Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (HEIKO) Hassan Jalili said earlier this month that the construction of buildings and premises of the factory that will manufacture the vaccine has already finished, adding that the factory will produce 12-15 million doses of the vaccine per month in early summer.

He said that around a third of the machinery needed in the plant to scale up vaccine manufacturing has been installed, adding that another 20 percent of the equipment are being set up so that the factory would be ready according to a pre-announced timetable.

“As we had promised, we will bring the semi-industrial production capacity of the vaccine to three million doses per month in the spring,” Jalili said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would not set any new target for administering all first doses.

“The Government has also not set, nor has any plans to set any new targets for completing first doses,” Morrison wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.

“While we would like to see these doses completed before the end of the year, it is not possible to set such targets given the many uncertainties involved,” he said.

Australia’s vaccination programme was built about the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but regulators adopted a more cautionary approach after a tiny number of cases of rare blood clots were found mainly among younger people who received the jab.

Medical authorities last week recommended those under the age of 50 have the Pfizer BioNTech shot instead.

The glacial pace of the rollout and slipping targets – the entire population was originally supposed to have been vaccinated by the end of October – have fuelled anger even as coronavirus cases in the country have been all but stamped out.

Morrison said 1.16 million people had received their doses as of Sunday, well short of the four million who were supposed to have had their jabs by the end of March.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheap and easy to transport, was supposed to be the backbone of Australia’s seven billion Australian dollars ($5.32bln) vaccine programme with nearly four million doses ordered from overseas and a further 50 million to be produced at a facility in Melbourne.

The government had also ordered 20 million doses of the Pfizer jab – although only about one million have been delivered – and moved to double that last week after the medical advice was changed.

Critics, including the opposition Labor Party, have said the government should have secured more deals with vaccine developers to diversify its vaccine portfolio. It has also signed up for the Novavax jab, which is still to secure approval, and is part of the World Health Organisation’s COVAX facility.

Morrison moved to reassure Australians saying 1,000 more GPs would be recruited to the rollout this week and noting 142,000 doses had been given to elderly people in more than 1,000 care homes, with more than 46,000 of those being second doses at more than 500 facilities.

“We will just get on with the job of working together to produce, distribute and administer the vaccines as safely and efficiently as possible,” he said, noting the speed of Australia’s vaccination programme was in line with other countries, including Germany and France, and ahead of Canada and Japan.

Australia’s tough response to the virus – closing borders, imposing hotel quarantines and an effective testing and tracing system – has largely stamped out COVID-19 allowing people to continue their lives much as normal.

But the border closures have also left tens of thousands of Australians unable to return home and mean those already in the country cannot leave.

It has reported just less than 29,400 cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic began, with 909 deaths.