Iran began its vaccination campaign against Covid-19 on Tuesday to fight the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak of the illness.
The first doses were given to doctors and nurses at Imam Khomeini hospital in the capital Tehran. The recipients handed a blue card marked with “Sputnik V” and the date of the injection.
However, the son of the Minister of Health Saeed Namaki, Parsa Namaki became the first recipient of the vaccine.
“We begin our national vaccination against the Covid-19 virus… (in) memory of the martyrdom of health workers,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said at a ceremony at a Tehran hospital, referring to medical personnel who have died from the disease.
Iran’s vaccination effort for its 80-million-plus population is starting with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, authorities have said.
The first doses of the Russian vaccine arrived on Thursday in Tehran. Two more shipments will arrive on February 18 and 28.
The Islamic republic has bought two million doses of Sputnik V.
Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned the health ministry from importing U.S.- and British-made vaccines. He said they were unreliable since they could spread the infection to other nations. Officials have refrained from referring to the Anglo-Swedish Astrazeneca’s British ties.
The Russian vaccine achieves a 91.6 percent efficiency against symptomatic forms of Covid-19.
The novel coronavirus has infected 1.4 million people in Iran and killed more than 58,500, according to the health ministry.
Since the start of January, the number of daily deaths has fallen below 100, for the first time since June.
However, the country started clinical trials of its own first locally developed vaccine in late December.