Iran's supreme leader bans vaccines made in US, UK
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he had "no confidence" in the American or British-made vaccinations.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says he has banned the government from importing COVID-19 vaccines made in the United States or United Kingdom even as his country grapples with the worst coronavirus outbreak in the region.
“Imports of US and British vaccines into the country are banned. I have told this to officials, and I'm saying it publicly now," Khamenei said, according to a Reuters translation of televised remarks. "I have no confidence in them,” he said. “If the Americans were able to produce a vaccine, they would not have such a coronavirus fiasco in their own country."
“Given our experience with France’s HIV-tainted blood supplies, French vaccines aren’t trustworthy either,” Khamenei said in a reference to France’s scandal involving contaminated blood transfusions during the AIDS epidemic.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said in a statement Friday that it would no longer deliver 150,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine the organization said had been donated by overseas benefactors.
