Tehran: Iran said it expects to secure its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines “soon” after making progress in overcoming hurdles that have been hindering purchases.
Health Minister Saeed Namaki said that while U.S. sanctions continue to hamper Iran’s ability to transfer money overseas for the vaccines, “fortunately those knots are being loosened,” according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency on Wednesday. He didn’t say when deals could be completed or which of the various vaccines being tested around the world Iran was seeking to buy.
This week, the governor of Iran’s central bank said sanctions were preventing Iran from procuring vaccines using the COVAX payment facility that’s jointly managed by Geneva-based Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization.
A spokesperson for Gavi said there was no “legal barrier” to Iran procuring vaccines through COVAX as the U.S. Treasury’s Office on Foreign Assets Control had issued a license covering coronavirus vaccine procurement.
Namaki didn’t mention COVAX or specify how Iran was paying for the doses.
Iran is struggling to manage the Middle East’s worst coronavirus outbreak and has repeatedly blamed U.S. sanctions for severely hampering its relief efforts. More than 1 million people have been infected and more than 50,000 have died from the disease so far, according to official figures.
President Hassan Rouhani told the cabinet he had instructed Health Ministry officials to buy coronavirus vaccines from a particular country without naming it, according to state TV.
“Our people have to know that any action that we want to take, whether its medicine imports, equipment imports or vaccine imports, we have to curse Trump 100 times at the same time,” Rouhani said.
U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran in 2018 after walking away from the landmark nuclear deal.
“Today it takes weeks or sometimes months — and the entire country is held up — just so that we can send some money somewhere so that we can buy medicines,” he said.-Bloomberg
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