Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, a department in Iran's Defense Ministry, which was previously led by Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, has developed the vaccine. Dr. Fakhrizadeh was assassinated on November 28.
The Fakhra vaccine Project Manager Dr. Karimi said in the unveiling ceremony that the efforts of the agency leading to the development of the vaccine started with manufacturing COVID-19 test kits and level-3 portable laboratories.
He said that research and development for the Fakhra vaccine began in December 2019, by collecting 35,000 samplings of the virus, from which 30 samples appropriate for initial vaccine seeds were isolated and cultivated.
Virus identification tests were then carried out and the final vaccine candid entered the trial production phase in June 2020, according to Karimi.
He also said that the vaccine then moved forward with other phases including animal tests and was finally given to Iran's Food and Drug Administration which after some modifications licensed the vaccine to move with the clinical trial.
In the ceremony, Iran's Health Minister Saeed Namaki also gave a speech, promising that Iran would soon become a world leader in producing the COVID-19 vaccine.
He underlined that Iran has managed to produce several vaccines for the Coronavirus, despite US sanctions pressure preventing the country from affording vaccines produced in other countries.
COVIran Barakat and Razi CovPars are other Iranian vaccines in the clinical trial phase, in addition to Soberana-02 which is a joint product of Cuba and Iran. There are also several other vaccines in the early stages of development.
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