ISNA reports that former Majles speaker Ali Larijani said in a Clubhouse meeting that “although I wasn’t responsible for it, I negotiated with the Chinese to get vaccines sent here. They were supposed to send 18 million doses at an affordable rate, but some officials from the Health Ministry caused a delay and the vaccines were never sent.” Larijani, who served as parliament speaker from June 2008 until May 2020, said that the negotiations took place last July, the same month that China started providing vaccines to members of high-risk groups.
Larijani made the comments after Tehran Chamber of Commerce president Masoud Khansari tweeted that the Health Ministry had prevented 6 million doses of Chinese-produced vaccines from being imported by the private sector.