An unknown “group of benefactors” from the United States is reportedly planning to send 150,000 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to virus-ravaged Iran.
Semi-official Iranian media reported on Monday that Karim Hemmati, director of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, said he expects the doses will be in Iran by Jan. 19 “based on coordination with a group of benefactors in the U.S.” Details about the potential aid are sparse, although Iran has experienced the most infections and deaths of anywhere in the Middle East.
He said the humanitarian organization anticipates receiving an additional 1 million vaccine doses, which will be distributed free of charge. There are reports that the 1 million additional doses will be coming from China, according to the Associated Press.
The Pfizer vaccine was created through a joint effort from Pfizer, which is based in the U.S., and the German company BioNTech.
The possibility of that particular vaccine being shipped to Iran presents some potential challenges as it needs to be kept at -94 degrees Fahrenheit, including while being transported. Some Iranian military officials have said they do not want the country to be inoculated with vaccines made abroad.
Iran was hit hard early in the pandemic and claims 1.2 million of its citizens have been infected, with more than 54,000 dead. Despite the official figure, there has been much speculation that the regime is not presenting the full extent of the health crisis, with experts and dissident groups saying the figures are far higher.
One dissident group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has been tracking numbers and claimed in a Sunday statement that deaths have exceeded 192,000 since the pandemic first began.
The Iranian regime, already battered by biting U.S. sanctions, made headlines in April when its military said it rounded up and arrested thousands of citizens for “spreading rumors about coronavirus.”
Worldwide, the contagion has infected nearly 81 million and killed more than 1.7 million people.
