Page 11 - IRANRptOct21

2.6 Iran approves use of US Johnson & Johnson vaccine as fifth COVID-19 wave continues to take heavy toll
Iran has approved the use of US firm Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine, a senior official said on September 16.
The same day saw the official coronavirus death toll in Iran exceed 116,000, with 450 more fatalities in the latest 24-hour cycle, as the country of 84mn continued to battle a fifth wave of infections. Another 18,021 new infections were recorded, with 2,859 resulting in the patient being hospitalised.
Eight months ago, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned imports of vaccines made by the US and UK, claiming such shipments could not be trusted. Iran has, however, since then accepted vaccines developed by Western firms but manufactured elsewhere.
The recently installed administration of President Ebrahim Raisi administration is under public pressure to step up the sourcing of vaccines.
“The Johnson & Johnson single-dose corona vaccine has been approved,” the head of Iran's Food and Drug Administration, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
He did not say where the vaccine would be produced or refer to the ban. Shanehsaz also said Russia’s single-component Sputnik Light vaccine has received an approval for use in Iran.
"Fortunately, the basket of the corona vaccines registered in Iran has become very diverse and large,” he added.
Iran uses Russia’s Sputnik V, India’s Covaxin made by Bharat Biotech and the UK-developed Oxford/AstraZeneca shot produced by Russia’s R-Pharm group and AstraZeneca-SKBio in South Korea. Iran also vaccinates people with its domestically developed COVIran Barakat shot.
The health ministry said that so far 13mn people have been fully inoculated against COVID-19.
Iran is often cited as the Middle East country that has been worst-hit by the pandemic, but some analysis suggests that Turkey should actually be given that unwanted title. There is much scepticism about the reliability of the coronavirus data that has been released by both the Turkish and Iranian authorities.
11 IRAN Country Report October 2021 www.intellinews.com