Vaccination to begin in coming days according to priorities: President Rouhani

Speaking on Saturday at the meeting of the National Task Force Against Coronavirus, President Hassan Rouhani said that all organs are ready to proceed with the vaccination plan throughout the country and in this context, medical staff, the elderly and people with underlying diseases are given priority to receive the vaccine.

The president said that with the arrival of other parts of the purchased vaccines, there would be a significant number of vaccination throughout the country before Nowruz.

In another part of his speech, Dr Rouhani stated that coronavirus does not differentiate between old and young, calling for more accurate and comprehensive observance of health protocols and said, “These days, we have seen Mr Minavand and Mr Ansarian, who were famous athletes and football players of our country, passed away as a result of this pandemic, and this is a warning to all people”.

The president added, “The overall situation in the country is such that we can hope to stop the fourth wave of this pandemic if we all work together. It is essential to reduce traffic, gatherings and strictly follow the health protocols”.

Dr. Rouhani called the decrease in the number of observers of health protocols from 81% to 75% worrying and said, “As the amount of observance of protocols decreases, we should expect to see an increase in the number of cases and deaths in the coming weeks”.

Stating that there are three important issues regarding the coronavirus pandemic, the President added, “The first issue is prevention, which fortunately today in the world there is a relatively strong consensus on its solutions, namely the use of masks, regular hand washing and avoiding gatherings”.

Dr. Rouhani said, “The second issue is the treatment of a disease for which no definite and effective treatment has been found yet. And the third issue is vaccination and collective safety for which the World Health Organisation has issued an emergency license to use vaccines due to special conditions of the pandemic, but it still has a long way to go until we reach an acceptable level of vaccination”.

“Even if all facilities are available and a sufficient number of vaccines have been produced, the two stages of vaccination of nearly 8 billion people in the world, or at least 60% of this population, will take a long time,” he said.

Referring to the arrival of the first shipment of vaccine in the country, Dr Rouhani stated, “All organs have prepared themselves for public vaccination and vaccination will start this week during the 10-day Fajr celebration and the national holiday of the Iranian nation, with the priority of medical staff”.

“We thank the officials of the Ministry of Health, especially the Minister of Health, and all those who worked hard to get the vaccine,” said Rouhani.

“Even if a sufficient number of vaccines are available, we should know that widespread vaccination takes a long time, and even after the general vaccination, since none of the vaccines is 100% effective, it is necessary to follow the health protocols with complete accuracy, and I call on all media outlets to continue to advise people to strictly follow the health protocols,” the president said, expressing hope that domestically-made vaccines (Pasteur, Razi and Barekat) would be available before the end of spring.