COVID-19 Crisis in Iran

COVID-19 Crisis in Iran

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

COVID-19 Crisis in Iran

Iran is experiencing a “fifth wave” in the pandemic, with a daily death toll of at least 655 and a total of nearly 100,000 deaths as of 18 August, based on official government figures. Iranian authorities must urgently redouble efforts to respond effectively to the crisis, including using all resources needed to secure life-saving vaccines and transparently communicating and implementing effective and clear vaccination and other safety guidelines. 

Tara Sephehri Far, Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “We are expressing our anger at the incompetence of the Iranian authorities and the lack of transparency in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, which is costing an Iranian life every few minutes. Public confidence is an important factor in managing the public health crisis, yet the track record of repeated failure of the Iranian authorities is being replayed.”

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

The number of deaths and hospitalizations is rising in Iran, and social media reports indicate that there are shortages of hospital beds and medicines in various cities. On August 14, Iranian authorities arrested six prominent human rights lawyers and activists who, according to their aides, were working on filing complaints against authorities’ mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis. Authorities released one member of the group overnight, but human rights defenders Arash Kikhosarwi, Mehdi Mahmoudian, Mustafa Neeli, Mohamedreza Faghi and Maryam Afrafraz remain in custody.

Iranian officials have blamed sanctions and delays in importing vaccines, among others, for the slow rollout of the vaccination problem, without providing clear evidence for their claims.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Senior Iranian officials have made statements that have seriously interfered with the purchase of life-saving vaccines and sowed misinformation among Iranians. On January 8, 2021, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech that “the import of Covid-19 vaccines made in the US and UK is prohibited.” In a tweet hidden by Twitter due to a violation of the company’s “Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy”, Khamenei claimed that vaccines made in the US or UK are “completely unreliable. It is unlikely that they will contaminate other countries.”

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

This policy has had serious consequences for Iranians’ right to health and the ability to access life-saving vaccines. On 9 January, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Dr Mohammad Hassan Ghosian Moghadam, said plans to import 150,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine donated by a US charity had been scrapped.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

There is a short supply of Covid-19 vaccines in Iran. As of August 18, only 5,063,519 people out of a population of 85 million have received the required two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to health ministry data. Iran has only approved vaccines that require two doses for full vaccination.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Over the past year, Iranian officials have prioritized and publicly promoted the production of a domestic vaccine – COVIran Barekat – in which it has reportedly invested substantial government resources. However, neither Iranian officials nor the government company that made the vaccine have released clear information about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. Experts have expressed concern over this lack of transparency. And it appears that production is seriously behind schedule.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Faced with a growing health crisis and widespread criticism of the way officials have handled it, the government may reverse a ban on the US- and UK-made vaccines. On 10 August, President Ibrahim Raisi, who had originally supported Ayatollah Khamenei’s ban, ordered the government to immediately allocate resources to import vaccines. On the same day, Khamenei said that vaccines should be acquired “by all possible means”. After weeks of death tolls and hospitalizations, Iranian authorities announced a general lockdown of six days starting August 15.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Current and former Iranian government officials are publicly trading the blame on the government’s failed pandemic response. On August 11, Alireza Zali, the head of Tehran’s COVID-19 response task force, told reporters that the country’s total vaccine supply would last only five days. Zali also claimed that Iran’s ambassadors did not make enough efforts to acquire foreign vaccines for import, and senior officials told health officials to advise WHO officials on Iran’s urgent pandemic-related needs and the country’s actual needs. 

In response, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed on his Instagram account that his ministry had secured imports of 24 million doses of the vaccine and implied that other government agencies were to blame. “Which organization rejected a proposal to import 20 million doses of vaccines?” He said, without providing any further details or evidence.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Human Rights Watch said Iranian authorities should use every available resource to respond to the outbreak in a way that respects human rights and harms the health and well-being of all people living in the country. This includes providing timely and accurate information about the pandemic, providing adequate personal protective equipment for frontline workers, providing access to affordable and safe testing, and providing social welfare support so that people are safe when needed. 

Human Rights Watch said the Iranian government should publish an up-to-date vaccine supply and distribution index with all procurement contracts as well as price details, delivery dates and multiple doses.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Human Rights Watch has previously called on all stakeholders, including the United States, which has imposed broad regional financial and economic sanctions on Iran, to ensure that people in Iran have safe, effective and affordable access to COVID-19 quickly, have free and equal access. On June 17, the US Treasury Department issued an additional general license for transactions and activities that include the production of face masks, ventilators,  oxygen tanks, and vaccines.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which provides that everyone has the right to “the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”. Under the treaty, the government is required to take steps “individually and through international assistance and cooperation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources” to fulfil the right to health. In particular, there is a need to take effective steps for “prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases”. Control of epidemics requires, among other steps, the “implementation or enhancement of vaccination programs and other strategies of infectious disease control.”

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

While the financial sanctions inevitably reduce the affected country’s ability to fund or support some of the necessary measures, Iran is determined to “provide the greatest possible protection” of the right to health “to the maximum extent of its available resources”. 

To combat the global pandemic, Human Rights has called on countries that have previously funded COVID-19 vaccine research to ensure that recipients of these funds share all intellectual property data and other information so that large numbers of successful vaccine candidates can be found. to enable manufacturing at scale.

“The Iranian authorities cannot blame the sanctions as an excuse for mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Sephari Farr said. “Iranians need and deserve better than their government.”

Health officials and media outlets have reported that hospitals have reached their maximum capacity in cities including Tehran, Ahvaz, Mashhad and Isfahan, and Sistan and Balochistan provinces close to it. Doctors in Mashhad are reporting a particularly dire condition, with deaths and hospitalizations rising rapidly.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

While Iranian officials reported that at least 655 people were dying daily from Covid-19 as of 16 August, this is a serious shortcoming. A deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchihad, had earlier said in a media interview that authorities only record Covid-19 deaths when there is a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and that the actual number of deaths is likely to be 1.5 to 2.2 times high.

On 4 August, the head of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tehran, Zali, lacked the oxygen and medical serum needed to administer remdesivir, a drug used for patients with COVID-19 in critical condition in Tehran. . The head of public relations at the union of pharmacists in Khorasan-e Razawi province also confirmed that rations of serum and remdesivir were being given due to short supply in the province.

Since then, the government’s vaccine rollout has been much slower than promised and its plan to secure essential doses through imports or domestic production lacks transparency. An average daily administration of 400,000 vaccines was envisioned in the Appendix to the National Vaccine Plan, or 10 million a month. Yet official figures up to the end of July show that the average number of vaccines administered on most days was significantly lower.

Authorities have imported and accepted donated vaccines from several countries and procured doses through COVAX, a global vaccine procurement mechanism. But there has been little transparency about the total number of vaccines imported or the plans for importing vaccines. On January 6, Iran’s Central Bank announced that it had paid for 16.8 million doses of the vaccine through COVAX.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

Vaccine supply shortages have severely hampered and delayed COVAX’s work on a global scale. According to a spokesman for Iran’s Food and Drug Administration, only 2.2 million COVAX doses have been distributed after the delay. On 5 August, Karim Hemati, head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that a total of 12,650,000 vaccine doses were imported through the organization and distributed to Iran’s Ministry of Health.

Although government-affiliated media reports claim that Phase III trials on the home vaccine will be publicly announced in August, the vaccine reportedly received emergency use approval from Iran’s Food and Drug Administration on June 14, and officials started administering it at various sites across the country. Human Rights Watch said Iran should immediately release the results of Phase III trials and provide information to an independent scientific agency to ensure that appropriate Phase 4 studies are being conducted to monitor for potential adverse events.

Iran’s production of domestically produced vaccines appears to be falling severely behind the promised timeline. One of the most powerful state-owned enterprises, headquartered to execute the order of Imam Khomeini, is the main investor in COVIran Barekat Vaccine. On July 3, the Headquarters’ head of public relations said the company plans to produce 50 million vaccine doses by September, but they don’t appear to be on track to deliver anywhere close to this proposed number of vaccines. On July 31, Hassan Jalili, executive director of the Iranian pharmaceutical company that makes the vaccine, said that about 5 million doses have been produced and are being tested for safety issues in the production process and 1.5 million doses have been distributed to the health ministry. 0 0 0.

COVID-19  Crisis in Iran

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