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agency IRNA reported on March 31, citing Maryam Hazrati, the country's deputy health minister.
Iran started inoculating citizens in February, using Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. The country is earmarked to receive 16mn doses of COVID-19 vaccines through the international World Bank-backed COVAX distribution initiative, while it is attempting to import 25mn doses from abroad in all, the health ministry said. There are also plans to produce 25mn doses domestically, it added.
A domestically developed vaccine is expected to become available in May, according to various local media reports. In early February, EIKO, which is the parent company of the vaccine's developer, Barakat, said that 14mn doses were to be produced by the summer.
2.5 Polls & Sociology
Risk analysis identifies Turkey, Iran and Russia among 37 nations likely to face mass ‘post-Covid’ protests
Turkey, Iran and Russia are among 37 emerging and frontier market countries likely to face mass protests in the coming months as restrictions imposed to control the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are increasingly lifted and the huge economic impact of the crisis is realised, according to new research from a global risk analysis company.
“The total number of protests in frontier and emerging markets has almost rebounded to pre-pandemic levels,” said Verisk Maplecroft principal analyst Miha Hribernik. “With many countries still in lockdown, and the full economic shock of the outbreak yet to be felt, we expect the number of protests to surge over the next 2-3 months.”
Verisk Maplecroft concluded that the outlook was particularly worrying for frontier and emerging markets where the post-pandemic economic outlook is bleak. Iran, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Algeria and Ethiopia are among countries facing a “perfect storm” of grassroots anger—protests triggered by the pandemic’s economic fallout look set to combine with unrest over pre-existing grievances over issues ranging from poverty to food supply, it said.
“Our base case from January—that 2020 will see a surge in protests and that the coming decade is set to be one of unprecedented unrest—still stands,” said Hribernik. “But in the countries least prepared to bounce back from the pandemic, it now looks like a best-case scenario.”
Russia, Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia face risks that are only slightly less acute than those of the countries with the most “perfect storm” potential, the report added.
Belarus, Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as Congo and Ethiopia, are among countries to have been shaken by anti-government protests in recent days. There was a drop-off in unrest in emerging and frontier markets in March, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), after the widespread introduction of lockdowns. But with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasting that growth in emerging markets and developing economies will contract by 1% this year, certain simmering pots of tension may come to the boil.
10 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com