Iran’s first home-made COVID-19 vaccine proves as highly effective

The report was issued by the Shafa Pharmed pharmaceutical complex on Monday following the release of a pre-clinical assessment.

The vaccine has so far cleared two phases of trial and is going through a third.

It was administered to 88 people in the first phase, and 280 in the second one. The volunteers’ ages ranged between 18 and 75.

Now, as part of the third phase, as many as 20,000 volunteers are receiving the jab.

The report was released as means of notifying the public about the remedy’s curative qualities until the results are published in world-class scientific journals.

Phase 1

The first phase saw some of the participants being administered with two vaccine doses, a three-milligram dose and a five-milligram one, and the rest getting two doses of placebo.

According to the report, the participants’ blood tests from the first phase did not show any abnormal changes.

All the reported side effects were minor with the exception of one case of hypotension (drop in blood pressure), a case of headache, and only two cases of infection with the virus, one before administration of the second dose and another after its administration.

The group also reported a case of drop in blood platelets that the respective volunteer recovered from without medical intervention.

Phase 2

Only 12 people among the 280 volunteers contracted the virus during the second phase trials.

All the cases emerged before administration of the second dose, with the exception of two cases in the placebo group.

Phase 3

So far during the third phase, 2,000 people among the 20,000-strong pool of volunteers have received their two doses of either vaccine or placebo.

The side effects that have been reported so far have all been rated as minor ones.

Only 63 people reported cases of complication, and that was before they were supposed to receive the second dose. Fifty-four among them were outpatients, just nine needing hospitalization.

The nine volunteers are recovering from their conditions, the report said, adding that the cases of hospitalization have included non-viral instances too, such as trauma resulting from bone fracture.

President Hassan Rouhani underlined the magnitude of the achievement during a meeting with figures from the country’s National Committee on Fighting the Coronavirus on Wednesday.

“Production and provision of the coronavirus vaccine in the tough circumstances brought about by the sanctions and the economic war, amounts to a great source of pride that the Iranian nation came by under the aegis of its resistance and steadfastness,” Rouhani said.

“This undeniable source of pride will go down in the country’s history,” the chief executive stated.

Separately on Monday, the Headquarters for the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, a charitable organization, which is responsible for the vaccine’s mass-production, wrote to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei concerning the cure.

Mohammad Mokhber, head of the organization, congratulated Ayatollah Khamenei on the occasion of securing the permit for CovIran Barekat’s countrywide application. The development, he said, had “turned Iran into one of the six countries in the world that produce [COVID-19] vaccines” based solely on indigenous knowledge.

The official put the success down to divine grace, the Leader’s support, and the diligence of the country’s youths and researchers.

The vaccine, he noted, was so far the only one among the six vaccine production platforms run by the Headquarters that has secured the permission. The organization has completed animal trials of other vaccines that are respectively based on the DNA, mRNA, recombinant protein, measles’ recombined virus, and stem cells.

The mass-production line for the DNA-based vaccine was ready, while creation of similar production means for the other types was underway, Mokhber noted.

He hailed as a notable achievement the fact that every liter of the CovIran Bareket vaccine yielded 3,500 doses, while similar Chinese and Indian vaccines respectively yield 300 and 1,800 doses in every liter.

The two active production lines that are assigned to mass-production of the cure produce a total of 25 million doses per month, which aggregates to an annual volume of 300 million doses, the official concluded.

Also on Monday, the Health Ministry said the country had been authorized to start emergency use of COVIran Barekat.

The report reflecting the Islamic Republic’s success in developing the domestic remedy comes as the country keeps suffering from the United States’ illegal and unilateral sanctions. Not only have the bans prevented Iran from obtaining medicine from foreign sources, but also they have come in the way of its accessing its financial resources overseas.

Iran is also running tests on two more homegrown cures, named Razi COV-Pars and Iran Fakhra.