India gifts 1 million doses of Made-in-India COVAXIN vaccines to Iran

The government of India has gifted one million doses of the made-in India COVAXIN vaccine to Iran on Saturday, under the ‘Vaccine Maitri’ initiative taken by the Indian government. In one of the shipments of the COVAXIN vaccine, it was written, “A gift from people of Republic of India to the people of Islamic Republic of Iran”.  

Even, earlier this year, India had provided 1,25,000 Covaxin vaccination shots to Iran. Bharat Biotech, located in Hyderabad, produces these Indian COVID-19 vaccines, Covaxin. In terms of the Vaccine Maitri program, India had also sent vaccines to 85 nations through donations, commercial sales, as well as the COVAX facility. India started exporting vaccinations in January 2021, only days after launching its massive domestic immunisation campaign. Vaccine Maitri is an Indian government-led humanitarian project to deliver COVID vaccinations to countries all over the world. On January 20, 2021, this initiative was started and from that India had supplied about 66.3 million vaccinations as of May 9, 2021. 

Iran also received vaccine doses from Italy

Meanwhile, last week, According to Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Perrone, Italy had even provided 1.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccination to Iran through the COVAX facility. During the Vaccine gifting ceremony on October 4, Perrone remarked, "Italy and Iran were among the countries that suffered the most at the beginning of the pandemic, and both were put to the test," Tehran Times reported.  

The vaccination drive in Iran has lately been increased, and it currently administers one million shots each day. Both dosages have been given to 20% of the population thus far. The outbreak, however, continues to have a significant impact on the nation's unvaccinated community. Furthermore, the latest COVID numbers provided by the Worldometer suggest that the total number of confirmed viral cases in Iran is 5,691,634 whereas the total number of fatalities due to COVID-19 is 122,370. More than 5,201,515 have been recovered from the disease. The number of active cases in the nation is 367,749, with 5,368 in critical condition.    

(Image: Twitter/ @India_in_Iran)