Iran International has received documents that show the government of Iran intends to buy coronavirus vaccine from the Chinese company Sinovac. The vaccine has not been approved for mass use in China and there are serious doubts about its effectiveness.

Recently, the director of Iran’s Red Crescent announced that his organization will buy one million doses of coronavirus vaccine from China. Neither he nor any other Islamic Republic official have offered more details about the type of Chinese vaccine intended by the Ministry of Health.

It is not clear whether the purchase of vaccines from Sinovac company is contingent on the success of the third phase of the clinical trial in Iran or the Islamic Republic is waiting for the result of clinical trials in other countries.

Among the Chinese vaccines, Beijing has recently approved a vaccine developed by Sinopharm company with a success rate of 79.34 percent. The UAE also uses Sinopharm vaccines.

Based on the information recieved by Iran International, the secretive behavior of the Islamic Republic officials is due to their concerns about the negative reaction of the public in Iran about buying the vaccine from China. They are aware that tests and purchase of Chinese Sinovac vaccine in Turkey have caused negative reactions from the people.

According to a medical official in Brazil, the clinical test trial of the vaccine in November was stopped once for “a severe undesired incident”. Announcing the result was also postponed three times.

Despite its development and testing of numerous coronavirus vaccines, China is yet to release enough information about these vaccines, but what remains clear is that China has not approved the Sinovac vaccine.

Media reports about the testing of the Sinovac vaccine in Turkey indicate a 91.25 percent success rate. However, one New York Times expert stated that the results in Turkey is based on testing on only 1,322 people, out of which 752 received the real vaccine and 570 received a placebo.

An anonymous source told Bloomberg that the effectiveness of this Chinese vaccine has only been reported for 29 people in Turkey.

In Brazil, the researchers have reported a 50 to 90 percent success rate for the vaccine, but the official result will be announced in January.

Brazil’s public health supervising authority Anvisa in December accused China of using “geopolitical measures” to issue the sale permit for the vaccine.