COVIRAN, the first coronavirus vaccine made by researchers at the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, was unveiled on December 29, 2020, and started to be mass-produced on March 29.

A new production line for COVIRAN BAREKAT coronavirus vaccine will start operation on June 22, manufacturing some 11 million doses of the vaccine per month.

With the start of production on May 22, about three million doses of vaccine have been produced, Seyed Reza Mazhari, executive director of the vaccine clinical studies, said.

Produced vaccines are prepared for public use as soon as being licensed by the Ministry of Health, he added.

So far, 10,500 volunteers from Tehran and Karaj received the first dose, it is expected that in the next week, 9,500 volunteers in the four cities of Bushehr, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Isfahan will be vaccinated; Therefore, the vaccine is administrated to 20,000 target population, he explained.

South America, African countries, several neighboring and two European countries have asked to purchase COVIRAN vaccine, Hassan Jalili, director of the vaccine research team, said on June 8.

Although, we are capable of exporting the vaccine, however, through the policies adopted by the Ministry of Health, no vaccine will be exported until the domestic need is fully met, he stated.

Mass vaccination against COVID-19 started on Iranian citizens with the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine on February 9.

While Iran continues efforts to mass-produce local candidates, several foreign vaccines have already been imported and others are expected soon.

Iran is also producing vaccines jointly with three countries of Cuba, Russia, and Australia, which may also be released by September.

Homegrown vaccines

The second Iranian-made vaccine developed by the Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute (Razi Cov Pars) to be administered among the population in early August; which started the clinical trial on February 27, entered the second phase of the human trial on Friday.

Iran has also successfully completed the first phase of the human trial for Fakhra vaccine, the third domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine, named after nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (he was assassinated in November 2020 near Tehran), that was unveiled and started the clinical trial on March 16.

“Osvid-19”, the fourth domestic vaccine produced by Osvah Pharmaceutical Company is also undergoing human trials, which will also be available in early September.

On May 24, the first coronavirus vaccine made by the private sector in Iran succeeded in receiving the code of ethics and entered the phase of clinical studies.

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The Fakhra vaccine Project Manager Dr. Karimi said in the unveiling ceremony that the efforts of the agency leading to the development of the vaccine started with manufacturing COVID-19 test kits and level-3 portable laboratories.

He said that research and development for the Fakhra vaccine began in December 2019, by collecting 35,000 samplings of the virus, from which 30 samples appropriate for initial vaccine seeds were isolated and cultivated.

Virus identification tests were then carried out and the final vaccine candid entered the trial production phase in June 2020, according to Karimi.

He also said that the vaccine then moved forward with other phases including animal tests and was finally given to Iran’s Food and Drug Administration which after some modifications licensed the vaccine to move with the clinical trial.

In the ceremony, Iran’s Health Minister Saeed Namaki also gave a speech, promising that Iran would soon become a world leader in producing the COVID-19 vaccine.

He underlined that Iran has managed to produce several vaccines for the Coronavirus, despite the US sanctions pressure preventing the country from affording vaccines produced in other countries.

COVIran Barakat and Razi CovPars are other Iranian vaccines in the clinical trial phase, in addition to Soberana-02 which is a joint product of Cuba and Iran. There are also several other vaccines in the early stages of development.

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