Friday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei banned the government from importing COVID-19 vaccines from the US and the UK.

"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 in live televised speech.

The Iranian Minister of Health, Saeed Namaki announced the beginning of trials for the Iranian coronavirus vaccine after taking the necessary approvals and passing the initial testing stages, indicating that Iran has a long history of producing vaccines.

Iran has confirmed a total of 1,274,514 COVID-19 cases and 56,018 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.