Cuban-Iran COVID-19 vaccine arrives in Tehran for Phase 3 clinical trial

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 10:17, March 12, 2021

TEHRAN, March 11 (Xinhua) -- A shipment with 100,000 doses of the Soberana 02 COVID-19 vaccine jointly developped by Cuba's Finlay Institute and the Pasteur Institute of Iran arrived in Tehran on Thursday for the Phase 3 clinical trials, state TV reported.

"Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials were carried out successfully in Havana under the supervision of the Pasteur Institute of Iran and, given the positive results ... the Phase 3 will be carried out simultaneously in Cuba and Iran," the spokesman for Iran's Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

The Phase 3 clinical trials of the Soberana 02 started in Havana on March 4 in Havana, as announced by the Finlay Institute Director General Vicente Verez in a press conference in the Cuban capital.

During her daily briefing, the spokeswoman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education Sima Sadat Lari announced that 88 new deaths related to the coronavirus were registered between Wednesday and Thursday, raising the death toll of the pandemic in Iran to 61,016.

Meanwhile, 8,308 new infections were confirmed in Iran in the past 24 hours, raising the total count in the country to 1,723,470, Lari said.

Of the newly infected, 716 were hospitalized, according to the spokeswoman.

The number of COVID-19 patients having recovered or been released from hospitals reached 1,471,179 on Thursday, with 3,818 still in critical condition, she noted.