Public vaccination against the coronavirus pandemic in Iran will begin in summer and conclude by the end of this fall if the production of homegrown vaccines and import of foreign ones go on seamlessly, President Hassan Rouhani said.

Speaking at a meeting of the Coronavirus Fight National Headquarters on Saturday, Rouhani said the public vaccination scheme in Iran will be over by December if the country produces the necessary amount of homegrown vaccines and purchases enough vaccines from abroad.

Expressing hope for the rollout of Iranian vaccines by late June, the president said the country has a capacity to vaccinate more than 500,000 people a day.

Iran takes pride in becoming a producer of COVID-19 vaccine, he added, pledging that his administration will try to import vaccines despite the financial difficulties.

The fact that the Iranian private sector has been unable to import the coronavirus vaccine in spite of having received permissions reveals that there are not enough supplies of vaccine in the world and there are obstacles to its purchase, Rouhani added.

Iran has already granted emergency use authorization to Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine, Covaxin made by India’s Bharat Biotech, Oxford/AstraZeneca developed by Russia’s R-Pharm Group, and the AstraZeneca-SKBio made in South Korea.

More than 3.13 million Iranians have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine so far, mainly health society personnel and the elderly above 70.