TEHRAN – President Ebrahim Raisi said Saturday that unlike certain European states, Iran began to inoculate foreign nationals against the coronavirus right after the outbreak of the pandemic and will keep on doing so vigorously.
Addressing a meeting of the Coronavirus Fight National Headquarters, Raisi highlighted his administration’s resolve to vaccinate foreign nationals and refugees against the coronavirus on humanitarian grounds.
“A number of European countries have just recently come up with a plan to do so (vaccinate foreigners), while the Islamic Republic of Iran began the vaccination of all foreign nationals after the very beginning of the pandemic,” he added.
The president further called for strict border controls to avert the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, stressing the need to prevent a shortage of vaccine as people are getting the booster shots.
On Saturday, the daily death toll from the coronavirus in Iran stood at the lowest rate over the past nine months.
The Iranian Health Ministry put the total deaths from COVID-19 in the country at 130,124 after 58 patients died of the infectious disease over the past 24 hours - the lowest toll since March 12.
Over the past 24 hours, 2,157 new cases of COVID-19 infection were reported, 463 of whom were hospitalized, the ministry said.
Nearly 58 million Iranians have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, over 47.92 million have received the second dosage, and over 1.22 million have gotten the booster shots, it added.