TEHRAN – Iran on Saturday recorded 108 new deaths from the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the lowest death toll since April 1, the Ministry of Health and Medical Education said.
Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said the deaths took the overall toll to at 82,854.
At least 6,448 new cases were also detected during the period, taking the country’s caseload to 3,086,900, she said.
Of the new cases detected since Friday, 931 patients were admitted to hospital. At least 2,736,000 patients have recovered so far or been discharged from hospital, while 3,307 remain in intensive care units.
The spokeswoman also said more than 22.32 million coronavirus tests have been carried out in Iran so far and over 4.37 million people have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine.
Minister of health Saeed Namaki said on Tuesday that Iran will become one of the world’s biggest producers of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of summer.
On Monday, Iran gave authorization for emergency use of COVIran Barekat, the homegrown vaccine for the coronavirus named after the pharmaceutical group that has developed it.
Namaki said the emergency use of another vaccine developed jointly by Cuba and the Pasteur Institute of Iran will be authorized next week.
The COVIran vaccine underwent three stages of clinical trials, the last of which involved 20,000 people in the cities of Tehran, Bushehr, Shiraz, Karaj, Mashhad and Isfahan.
Iran has already granted emergency use authorization to Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine, Covaxin made by India’s Bharat Biotech, Oxford/AstraZeneca developed by Russia’s R-Pharm Group, and the AstraZeneca-SKBio made in South Korea.