“The health teams performed well and we even exceeded the predicted goal of 700,000 people and reached the number of 943,000 people,” ISNA quoted Mohsen Zahraei, the head of the preventable diseases department of the Ministry of Health, as saying.

On December 31, 2022, the vaccination program for refugees and foreign nationals started with the aim of providing protection against polio and measles.

The program was implemented by 27 medical science universities focused on non-Iranian nationals under the age of 15, he added.

The second phase of the plan is related to the screening and diagnosis of tuberculosis, which will continue for three months, Zahraei noted.

On December 23, 2022, a national specialized workshop for ‘risk communication and social participation’ was held in order to empower health workers in the supplementary vaccination campaign for the refugee population with the participation of UNICEF.

Considering the Risk Communication and Social Participation Program (RCCE) is one of the most important health promotion programs the program was a combination of information campaigns, health promotion, social mobilization, attracting people participation and other organizations, and establishing effective communication.

In May 2022, it was announced that all foreign immigrants and refugees under the age of five would be vaccinated against polio and measles. Children under the age of five and foreign immigrants will be inoculated through door-to-door visits in high-risk areas across the country.

The measles vaccination program in Iran started in 1984 when 34 percent of the population was vaccinated in the first year and 90 to 95 percent of the population after 6 years. Also in 2003, 33 million people were vaccinated with a national program to eradicate measles in the country.

Concerns about the spread of measles in the country are growing as the Afghan population grows.

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under 5 years of age. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.

Measles is caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family and it is normally passed through direct contact and through the air. The virus infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body. Measles is a human disease and is not known to occur in animals.

More than 140,000 people died from measles in 2018 – mostly children under the age of 5 years, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.

The inhumane sanctions have had devastating effects on the health system and the question is who is responsible for the deaths of some innocent patients due to the lack of essential medicines, Health Minister Bahram Einollahi has said.

He made the remarks at the 69th session of the Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean, which was held in Egypt on October 10-13, 2022.

Einollahi said in July 2022 that despite the sanctions that have existed since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution to prevent the country from progressing, Iran has the strongest health system in the region.

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Speaking in an event to honor healthcare workers, Deputy for Health in the Ministry of Health and Medical Education said that Iran’s health network, founded 30 years ago by great healthcare figures, is a strong point that reaches across the country so that no village with over 1,000 people population is deprived of the health network.

In addition to Health Houses – small local health centers, Raisi said, there are over 2,500 medical centers in cities and countryside, and the centers are all connected to hospitals and specialized centers.

These centers in the health network managed to carry out three rounds of COVID-19 screening across the country and it is now extending to the nomad population, according to the Deputy Minister.

He also underlined that the health network will upgrade from primary healthcare to a universal health coverage system (UHC); the transmission is now in the pilot phase.

Several COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing projects have been developed in Iran and some of them have undergone clinical tests.

Meanwhile yesterday, a second locally-manufactured COVID-19 vaccine has entered human trials in Iran.

The human trial of the vaccine, called Razi COV-Pars, kick-started on Sunday morning with the injection into two volunteers at Tehran’s Rasoul Akram Hospital.

This is the second Iranian vaccine that has entered the human trial after, COVIRAN vaccine made headlines as the first viable Iranian-made vaccine for the coronavirus last month.

Developed by Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, COV-Pars is an inhalable vaccine. It employs recombinant versions of the spike protein, which tutors the immune system against the wild virus. This works with an adjuvant, a compound that puts frontline immune cells on battle alert to muster a robust immune response to the protein antigen.

COV-Pars is administered in three stages; two intramuscular shots 21 days apart and an intranasal administration 30 days after the second jab.

Developers say not only does this protect the recipient from the virus, but it prevents them from transmitting the virus to others. Simply put, those who receive the COV-Pars vaccine will not need a mask.

Its domestic rival, Coviran, is ahead in the schedule, and as it will reportedly start the second phase of the human trial next month. At the same time, Iran has imported two batches of Russia’s Sputnik V and a batch of China’s Sinopharm to vaccinate sensitive groups.

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