Iran returns 820,000 donated US-manufactured vaccines [Video]

• Poland donated about 820,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines to Iran.
• But upon learning that the doses were manufactured in the US, Iran decided to return the donation.
• Back in 2020, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned American or British vaccines from entering the country.

Poland donated 820,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Iran but the country returned them upon learning that they were manufactured in the United States.

Health Ministry official Mohammad Hashemi said that Poland had donated about a million doses of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine.

“But when the vaccines arrived in Iran, we found out that 820,000 doses of them which were imported from Poland were from the United States,” he continued. “After coordination with the Polish ambassador to Iran, it was decided that the vaccines would be returned.”

American or British vaccines were “forbidden” from entering the country back in 2020, per orders of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters.

Despite reaching daily records of COVID-19 fatalities, hard-liners in the parliament railed against American-made vaccines.

The country now only allows imports of vaccines that are not produced in the U.S. or U.K.

Iran has been struggling with its sixth wave of COVID-19 cases, with the omicron variant having become the dominant strain.

The country currently has the highest national COVID-19 death toll in the Middle East with over 135,000 total deaths.

About 90% of the country’s population above age 18 has received two shots, but only 37% of this population has received a third shot.

Since forbidding vaccines made in the U.S., the country has mostly relied on Sinopharm, the state-backed Chinese vaccine. Other shots allowed were those manufactured by Oxford-AstraZeneca, Indian firm Bharat’s Covaxin, Russia’s Sputnik V, and its homegrown COVIran Barekat shot.

Still, the majority of Iran’s vaccinations were from British-Swedish AstraZeneca.

Source: Aol.com