TEHRAN – The COVID-19 vaccine, co-produced by Iran and Cuba, has passed the first phase of human testing with success.

Iran’s coronavirus vaccine jointly made with Cuba has successfully passed the first stage of the clinical trial and the second stage is underway in Cuba, which will soon enter the final stage, Alireza Vahabzadeh, an adviser to the health minister, wrote on his Twitter account on Monday.

Thanks to the efforts of the Pasteur Institute [of Iran], the vaccine is also produced on a common platform in the country, he emphasized.

Earlier on Saturday, Kianoush Jahanpour, spokesman for Iran's Food and Drug Administration, said that Iran and Cuba have formed a ‘strategic alliance’ through working jointly on a project for producing a potential coronavirus vaccine.

He touched on an agreement signed by the Pasteur Institute of Iran and the Finlay Institute of Cuba which allows the two countries to move faster toward realizing the goal of ‘immunization against coronavirus’.

Jahanpour said on January 1 that the first batch of coronavirus vaccine which will reach Iran will be probably purchased directly from a foreign country.

On December 29, 2020, the first coronavirus vaccine made by Iranian researchers, was unveiled and injected into three volunteers. 

Hossein Vatanpour, an official with the Ministry of Health, has said 16 Iranian knowledge-based companies are working on all types of vaccine platforms. One company is active in producing DNA-based vaccines, and about three others are working to make mRNA-based vaccines, he added.

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