Iran to Coproduce Sputnik Vaccine; Return of the "Violet Oil" Preacher

Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, the head of Iran’s Food and Drug Administration, is currently on a visit to Moscow and has signed a memorandum of understanding with Gamaleya Institute, the Russian company that developed the Sputnik V vaccine.

The agreement is to coproduce the vaccine in Iran, and on arrival in Moscow, Shanehsaz told reporters that preliminary talks over the purchase and co-production of Sputnik V actually began a few months ago.

“The two sides enjoy considerable capacities in the field of drugs supply, and with the cooperation that will be accelerated as of today, we will be able to meet many of the medical and drug needs of Iran,” said Shanehsaz.

The first shipment of the Russian Covid-19 vaccine was delivered to Iran to on February 4. Vaccinations are due to begin tomorrow, February 9, with frontline medical staff. Earlier Mahmoud Vaezi, President Rouhani’s Chief of Staff, had said that Iran was to receive two million doses of the Russian vaccine but later it was announced that 500,000 doses would be delivered to begin with. The first shipment, however, was only 20,000: enough to vaccinate 10,000 people.

Kazem Jalali, Iran’s Ambassador to Moscow, has said that the second and third shipments of Sputnik V will be delivered to Iran by February 28. He added that this will continue every two weeks and later, every month. Meanwhile, it was reported that the 50th case of the more contagious variant of coronavirus discovered in the UK has been identified in Iran.

Does the Coronavirus Vaccine Make You Gay?

 “Don’t go near those who have had the Covid vaccine. They have become homosexuals,” announced Abbas Tabrizian, a Qom cleric whose fans consider him a “Father of Islamic Medicine” and an “ayatollah”. The clergyman made the announcement on his Telegram channel, which has an astonishing 210,000 followers. He claimed a microchip is injected together with the vaccine leads to genetic changes which, in turn, lead to homosexuality and a loss of morality and faith.

Unsurprisingly, Tabrizian has a history of derogatory opinions about Western medicine. Last year, a video showed him burning Harrison’s Manual of Medicine and saying “Islamic medicine” had made such books “irrelevant.” Iranian officials and authorities of Shia seminaries condemned the act. Tabrizian then became the butt of jokes again in Iran in March 2020, after he suggested applying violet oil to the anus as a cure for Covid-19.

In the summer of 2019, Iran’s Special Court of Clergy ordered the Health Ministry to shut down all treatment centers and pharmacies associated with Tabrizian.

Iran’s Latest Coronavirus Statistics

In her daily briefing for February 8, health ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari announced the official coronavirus statistics for the past 24 hours:

Provinces Round-up

According to the latest figures announced by the Ministry of Health, 36 cities in Iran are in an orange state of alert, 178 cities are on yellow alert and 234 are blue.

The number of coronavirus cases in Khuzestan has been rapidly rising in recent weeks and Dr. Farhad Abolnejadian, president of Ahvaz Jondishapur University of Medical Sciences, blames the rise on family get-togethers. He said people have not been following health guidelines and have been under the impression that the epidemic is over, because of Khuzestan having been rated “blue”.

In Alborz, three more confirmed Covid-19 patients died in the past 24 hours and the death toll in the province reached 2,692, reported Dr. Mohammad Fathi, president of Alborz University of Medical Sciences. With the admission of 35 new patients with Covid-19 symptoms, the current number of hospitalizations in the province is now 267. Since the coronavirus outbreak, he said, 30,742 Covid-19 patients have been hospitalized in the province and, as of now, 27,780 of them have been released from hospitals.

In the neighboring province of Qazvin, 63 new cases of Covid-19 were identified and 26 of them were hospitalized, reported Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. Currently 219 coronavirus patients are hospitalized across the province. In the past 24 hours no new fatalities were reported from Qazvin and the death toll in the province stands at 1,281.

For the fourth day in a row no new Covid-19 fatalities were reported in Yazd although recently health officials had been concerned about the rising number of infections in the province. In the past 24 hours, 54 suspected cases of coronavirus were hospitalized in Yazd and the current number of patients in hospital now stands at 176, of whom 54 of are in ICUs. So reported Dr. Ebrahim Soleimani, a spokesman for Yazd University of Medical Sciences.

Up until now around 2,100 members of medical staff in Ilam have been infected with coronavirus and four of them have died, reported Dr. Mohammad Karimian, president of Ilam University of Medical Sciences.

In the past 10 days the number of coronavirus outpatients in Urmia, capital of West Azerbaijan, has grown 2.5 times, said Dr. Ali Sadaghiani, president of Urmia Health Center. Just in the past 24 hours, he said, 567 people with coronavirus symptoms visited treatment centers in the city. Since the coronavirus outbreak, 1,200 Covid-19 patients are recorded as having lost their lives in Urmia.

In Lorestan, 121 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed, reported Dr. Maryam Koushaki, vice president of Lorestan University of Medical Sciences. As of now, she reported, more than 64,000 people in the province have been infected with coronavirus and 1,326 are known to have died.