Iran completing plant to scale up production for main COVID vaccine candidate
A major Iranian factory being prepared to scale up manufacturing of the country’s main coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine candidate is almost there as authorities vow the plant would reach a production capacity of 12-15 million doses per month in early summer.
Hassan Jalili, who heads the Coviran Barekat vaccine project at SETAD, an Iranian financial and industrial conglomerate, said on Monday that the construction of buildings and premises of the factory that will manufacture the vaccine has already finished.
Jalili said his group has installed around a third of the machinery needed in the plant to scale up vaccine manufacturing, adding that another 20 percent of the equipment are being set up so that the factory would be ready according to a pre-announced timetable.
“As we had promised, we will bring the semi-industrial production capacity of the vaccine to three million doses per month in the spring,” he said.
The project manager said that supplies of Coviran will increase exponentially once the plant is fully ready in early summer.
Coviran Barekat is the top candidate among four vaccines being developed in Iran to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
The vaccine has passed its initial tests and is currently through is second stage of human trials.
Jalili said the third and most significant phase of tests on Coviran would begin in early May if the Iranian health ministry’s regulators approve the results of the second phase.
Iran hopes that domestic initiatives could significantly boost vaccine supplies for a nationwide inoculation program that started late last year.
The campaign has relied on vaccines imported from Russia, China, India and a batch of jabs ordered by Iran under an international vaccine development program.
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