Iran bans Covid-19 vaccines from US, UK

Dubai, January 8

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday banned Iran from importing of American Pfizer-BioNTech and Britain’s AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines.

“The import of US and British vaccines into the country is forbidden. I have told this to officials and I am saying it publicly now,” Khamenei said in a live televised speech.

“I have no confidence in them. Sometimes they want to test vaccines on other nations … If the Americans were able to produce a vaccine, they would not have such a big coronavirus fiasco in their own country,” said the leader.

Iran, the country that has been worst hit by the novel coronavirus in West Asia, launched human trials of its first domestic Covid-19 vaccine candidate late last month, saying it could help Iran defeat the pandemic despite US sanctions that affect its ability to import vaccines.

However, Khamenei praised Iran’s efforts to develop domestic vaccines but said it could obtain vaccines “from other reliable places”. He gave no details but China and Russia are both allies of Iran.

“I’m not optimistic about France either because of their history of infected blood,” Khamenei said, referring to the country’s contaminated blood scandal of the 1980s and 1990s. — Reuters

UK nod to Moderna

The UK on Friday licensed Moderna vaccine to counter Covid-19. It is the third vaccine to be approved by the country facing a resurgence of cases due to the mutant virus. TNS