TEHRAN – Some 74 percent of the population have been vaccinated against coronavirus, achieving stable immunity, the head of the medical system organization, Mohammad Raeiszadeh, has said.

So far, 65.1 million people have received the first dose, 58.3 million have been inoculated with the second dose, and 30.8 million people have injected the third dose and more, and the total number of vaccines injected in the country reached 154,270,560 million doses, he explained.

Currently, people who have not been vaccinated have the highest risk of infection and should get the first dose of vaccine as soon as possible and then receive the second dose a month later, he lamented.

Iran among top 6 countries in COVID control

Iran is among the world’s top six countries in the fight against coronavirus, Health Minister Bahram Einollahi said in August.

He went on to note that there were more than 700 deaths in the country every day. But with volunteer work and people’s support, vaccination was done quickly. Iran holds the vaccination record per population in the world, as the country injected 1,600,000 vaccines daily and 8,600,000 vaccines per week.

It has been announced that Iran is among the top six countries in the world in controlling the pandemic, despite the brutal sanctions, he emphasized.

Referring to the capability of Iranian vaccine manufacturers, he said that some 50 million vaccine doses of COVID vaccine are already stored and 6 vaccine production centers are operating in the country.

Next waves on the cards?

There is still the possibility that the eighth or even subsequent waves of coronavirus hit the country, but it highly depends on which variant of the virus will emerge, Mostafa Salehi Vaziri, head of the national laboratory for COVID-19 at the Pasteur Institute of Iran, has said.

The new strain of Omicron known as BA2.75 has not yet been identified in Iran. At present, the most available variant of COVID in the country (more than 90%) is the BA5 strain, and in other parts of the world, the BA5 strain is the most widespread, he explained.

He went on to note that there is a possibility of the eighth or more waves of the corona, but everything depends on what variant of the virus will emerge, which is also affected by other factors. Therefore, it cannot be said that the seventh wave is the last one in Iran.

Masoud Younesian, an epidemiologist, also warned that the Omicron variant may rise for the third time in the country.

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