Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that he does not trust coronavirus vaccines produced by the Western countries and called on officials to prohibit those vaccines from entering the country.
“We must not import (Covid-19) vaccines from the US, the UK or even France. I do not trust them,” Khamenei said in a speech to the nation televised on state media.
This comes as Iranian officials complain about US President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" sanctions hampering their Covid-19 fight.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has previously accused the US of preventing Iran from making a payment to COVAX, an initiative led by the World Health Organization (WHO), which aims to provide worldwide access to effective Covid-19 vaccines.
“The United States even prevents us from using our own money in different countries to pay COVAX for the vaccine,” Zarif said, adding, “we’ve been trying, our Ministry of Health has been trying, our Central Bank has been trying to transfer money we have in billions in other countries to WHO for COVAX and we haven’t had much success.”
Last month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his government plans to produce its own Covid-19 vaccine “with the help of Iranian scientists”, and to buy vaccines from abroad, according to state news agency IRNA.