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Although it suffers a high rate of injuries due to Covid-19, Iran has refused to authorize the American and British vaccines even if other countries contribute to them, with the justification that there is “no trust in them”.
On Friday, the guide of the Republic of Iran, Ali Khamenei, banned the import of emerging anti-Coronavirus vaccines manufactured in the United States and the United Kingdom, considering that “there is no confidence in them”, despite the fact that Iran is the country most affected by Covid-19 in the Middle East.
In a tweet posted on Khamenei’s official English-speaking Twitter account, he said: “American and British vaccines” are not allowed to enter the country, adding: “They are not to be trusted … They may want to test the vaccine in other countries. “
In practice, the permit means banning the importation of Pfizer / Biontec vaccines, which is an American-German vaccine, as well as the American Moderna vaccine and the British-Swedish / British Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneca. Iran is expected to turn to its allies that make the vaccine, such as China and Russia.
“I’m not optimistic about France either, the reason is that they have precedents where HIV-contaminated blood was used,” Khamenei said.
The dirty blood issue was a health scandal in France between the 1980s and 1990s, and hundreds of people in Iran were infected with HIV in the 1980s by receiving contaminated blood from France.
Khamenei said in a televised speech on Friday: “If the Americans had been able to produce a vaccine, the tragedy resulting from the emerging corona virus would not have occurred where some four thousand infected people die in one day,” referring to the number of Covid-related deaths. -19 in the United States. According to the Johns Hopkins University census on Thursday.
Khamenei only referred to “Pfizer” by name, but the ban appears to exclude the importation of other vaccines made in the United States and Great Britain. Iran’s relationship with the United States has been extremely strained during the era of outgoing US President Donald Trump.
UAE / KS (AFP, DPA)
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