Tehran: Islamic Republic of Iran has started its vaccination campaign against Covid-19 on Tuesday to fight the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the illness.

As per Iranian authorities, Iran’s inoculation effort for its 80-million-plus population is starting with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine as the country has bought two million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. 

The first batch of Russian vaccine arrived on Thursday in Tehran while two more shipments expected to reach the country by February 18 and 28.

According to health ministry of Iran, the novel coronavirus has infected 1.4 million people and killed more than 58,500.

Last week, the Health Minister, Saeed Namaki said that Iran would also receive 4.2 million doses of the vaccine developed by Anglo-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Earlier in December 2020, the country started clinical trials of its own locally developed vaccine.