Addressing the economic coordination committee meeting on Sunday, Rouhani urged the Central Bank of Iran, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Planning and Budget Organization together with Health Ministry to do the necessary planning for buying and transferring vaccine to Iran as soon as possible.

Iranian government has written the next year budget bill relying on its experiences achieved by standing against full-blown war and foiling inhumane sanctions aiming to develop economy and to support people’s livelihood, he noted.

Earlier, Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education Kianoush Jahanpour announced that there are four different ways to supply the coronavirus vaccine to the Iranian nation.

The arrangements for the joint production of the vaccine with a foreign country have been pursued. He noted that Iran set condition for conducting a human clinical trial of the vaccine is that it should be jointly produced and its technology should be transferred to Iran, he said.

One of the well-known institutions in Cuba, which has old cooperation with the Pasteur Institute of Iran in the field of vaccine production for many years, accepted to kick off the joint venture, the official added.

Cuba has successfully completed phase one of the human clinical trial of the coronavirus vaccine, the second phase of the human clinical study is currently being carried out under the supervision of the Pasteur Institute of Iran in the Latin American country, he said, adding that it will be continued in Iran within the coming months.

Iran will also follow the process of vaccine production domestically, which was started from the beginning by 16 Iranian companies, Jahanpour said, noting that the Food and Drug Administration received 12 announcements of readiness to produce the vaccine in Iran of which eight companies have started the human clinical trial phase, and two more companies will soon begin the human trial.

As for the vaccines from COVAX, he said that the ministry still cannot announce the exact time that the coronavirus vaccine will enter the country, because COVAX has not yet kicked off the distribution of the vaccine.

Iran has purchased 16.8 million doses of the vaccine from COVAX. The vaccines from Pfizer-BioNtech, Moderna and Oxford-Astrazeneca have obtained international licenses, and some countries have started vaccination of their citizens with one of these vaccines.

The first injection of the 1st phase of COVID19 vaccine human trial produced by Imam Khomeini’s Order Executive Office was done on December 29.

The vaccine named COV Iran Barkat was injected to first volunteer without any side effect like shock or fever.