Iran to Start Covid-19 Vaccinations within a Week

Iranwire – Iran will kick off its coronavirus vaccination campaign within a week and “this is a real cause for celebration,” President Hassan Rouhani said on February 6, two days after the country received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. The announcement comes amid fears of a fourth wave of the coronavirus that was first reported in Iran February last year, marking one year of the pandemic.

The first shipment of Sputnik V vaccine, the only foreign vaccine to be registered and approved in Iran, arrived at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on February 4. In the first phase of vaccination, Rouhani said, high-risk groups including healthcare workers on the front lines will be vaccinated, followed by the elderly and those with critical ailments. He emphasized that even if Iran had all the vaccine doses it needs, the vaccination program for the entire population of 80 million “will perhaps take around six months.”

Rouhani said the second shipment of the Russian vaccine is expected to arrive by late February, but warned that “we must follow health guidelines for another year because the efficacy of vaccine is not 100 percent.”

Iran is also expecting to receive 4.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the World Health Organization’s Covax program. Iran started clinical trials of one of its own vaccines in late December and, according to Rouhani, it may become available by early summer.

Statistics released last week showed that compliance with health protocols has decreased to 81 percent, and this week’s report shows 75-percent compliance, which will result in an increase in infections, Rouhani warned.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Health Ministry announced that the total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in the country is close to 1.5 million.

Provinces Round-up

Currently 36 cities in Iran are in an orange state of alert, 178 are on yellow alert and 234 are blue, i.e., the lowest state of alert but not completely free of coronavirus.

Alireza Raeesi, spokesman for the National Coronavirus Taskforce, announced that although currently no city of Iran is in a state of red alert, the number of cities on orange alert has doubled. The number of cities on yellow alert has also increased from 130 to 178. This could be a “mild tide” that might lead to a fourth Covid-19 surge, he said. Raeesi particularly warned about the situation in the eight provinces of Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Yazd, Gilan, Mazandaran, Golestan, West Azerbaijan and Lorestan.

Last week it was announced that Gilan, with three cities on orange alert, was second on the list of provinces in a dangerous situation, but now the number of orange cities in the province has risen to seven, according to Dr. Masoud Nowruzi, vice president of Gilan University of Medical Sciences. Dr. Nowruzi said the factors most contributing to the spread of the virus in the province are an increase in traffic, a decrease in compliance with health protocols, especially mask-wearing, and also an increase in gatherings. “Taxis have limited space and, considering the cold weather, it isn’t possible to ventilate the air inside the taxi. As a result the virus is transmitted easily,” he said. “Both the driver and the passengers must wear masks and the number of passengers must not exceed three.”

With the hospitalization of 84 new coronavirus patients in the past 24 hours the total number of hospitalized patients in Gilan now stands at 450. Of this number 100 are in ICUs.

Travel to southern areas of Iran from the cold northern areas has led to an increase in the number of coronavirus outpatients and hospitalizations in these provinces, and for more than two weeks officials have been warning that health protocols must be observed when traveling to Hormozgan province and its islands. On February 6 Mohammad Ahmadizadeh, director of Haghani Port in Bandar Abbas, announced that anyone without a negative test cannot travel to these islands, and the test results are only valid for 72 hours.

At a birthday party in Abadan, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, 15 out of 18 guests were infected with coronavirus, according to Dr. Najmeh Seyed Aghamiri, supervisor of Abadan Health Center. She said no action is being taken against violators of the nighttime traffic curfew in Abadan and mask-wearing in the city has fallen from a high of 80 percent to 35 percent.

In Yazd, one the provinces in a more critical condition, currently 166 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized, 54 of them in ICUs, according to Dr. Ebrahim Soleimani, spokesman for Yazd University of Medical Sciences, who warned that if this trend continues “we will be back to the dark days of coronavirus.” Despite an increasing number of new Covid-19 patients in Yazd, however, no confirmed coronavirus fatalities were registered in the province in the past two days.

In Qazvin 197 new Covid-19 cases were identified of whom 35 were hospitalized, bringing the total number of hospitalizations in the province to 219, according to Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. Of this number 29 are being treated in intensive care units and are on ventilators. No new Covid-19 fatalities were reported in the past 24 hours and the official death toll in the province remains at 1,278.

Iran’s Latest Coronavirus Statistics

In her daily briefing for February 6, Health Ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari announced the official coronavirus statistics for the past 24 hours:

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