Iran Finds Way to Buy Covid Vaccine Despite U.S. Sanctions

Iran has found a way to buy coronavirus vaccines following a U.S. exemption to its sanctions, in a breakthrough for the country that’s fighting the worst outbreak of the virus in the Middle East.

Iran will purchase 16.8 million vaccine doses from the World Health Organization’s COVAX facility by transferring a 200 million euro ($244 million) payment through two unidentified European and Turkish banks and a domestic bank, central bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati told state television. He said the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control greenlit the transaction “under pressure from world public opinion.”