Production line of Iran’s Cov Pars vaccine against coronavirus shut down

Iran’s Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute says the production line of its Cov Pars vaccine against COVID-19 has been shut down after the Health Ministry reneged on a pledge to buy millions of doses of the pre-ordered product.

Mohammad-Hossein Fallah, the deputy head of the Institute’s Research and Technology Center, said the major pharmaceutical company had been told by the Iranian Health Ministry to produce 3.5 million doses of Cov Pars in February, but the ministry went back on its pledge when the production process was completed.

The reason for the closure of the production was that “coronavirus vaccines do not sell well in the country” while the respiratory disease is on the decline worldwide, he said.

Now that the ministry is planning for a fourth round of nationwide inoculation, it has already purchased the vaccines it requires, Fallah explained.

Iran was among the first countries to be hit with an outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020. It was likewise among the first producers of vaccines against the virus.

Thanks to a successful vaccination campaign, using both domestic and foreign vaccines, Iran has managed to bring the outbreak under control.

In recent days, however, there has been a gradual rise in the number of infections with the disease, prompting official warnings of a new wave of COVID-19 and calls for the public to take a fourth booster shot.

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