Iran, Russia to jointly produce vaccine against COVID-19

CAIRO: Iran and Russia will cooperate to produce a COVID-19 vaccine in the Islamic republic as COVID-19 cases in Iran surged to 384,666 on Saturday. Meanwhile, an Iraqi health official warned that the citizens should not play down the seriousness of the coronavirus as 4,644 daily new infections were reported.

Iran, the hardest-hit country in the Middle East region, reported 1,894 new cases, bringing the total number of infections to 384,666, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

The pandemic has so far claimed 22,154 lives in Iran, up by 110 in the past 24 hours. A total of 332,131 coronavirus patients have recovered, with 3,708 still in critical condition.

The announcement of Iran-Russia cooperation on producing a coronavirus vaccine was made on Friday at the online meeting between KazemJalali, Iran's ambassador to Moscow and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund, Iranian semi-official FARS news agency reported on Saturday.

Jalali called for further health and medical cooperation between the two countries. In Iraq, 4,644 COVID-19 cases were reported during the day, bringing the total nationwide infections to 256,719.

The death toll rose to 7,422 with the addition of 63 new fatalities, while 3,891 more patients recovered in the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 195,259.

"The lack of compliance of the citizens will increase the number of infections and make the ministry to stop at a certain stage because our health institutions have a limited capacity and this will also lead to an increase in deaths," Ryadh Abdul-Amir, head of Iraqi Public Health Department in the Health Ministry, said in a press release. (IANS)

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