Tehran, Feb 27 (IANS): Iranian minister of health and medical education Saeed Namaki said on Friday that Iran will turn into a major Covid-19 vaccine producer in the next Iranian spring which begins on March 20, official IRNA news agency reported.

"With the continual efforts of the Iranian youth, we will become one of the largest (Covid-19) vaccine hubs in the world in the next spring," Namaki said.

"Based on the plan, we will vaccinate vulnerable groups by spring," Namaki said, adding that and "we will hopefully be able to control the situation by utmost observance of health guidelines."

On February 9, Iran started nationwide vaccination campaign against Covid-19 using Russia's Sputnik V jabs, the Xinhua news reported.

Iran's Health Ministry reported 8,103 daily Covid-19 cases on Friday, raising the total nationwide infections to 1,615,184.

The pandemic has so far claimed 59,899 lives in Iran, up by 69 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, the spokeswoman for Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing.

Of the newly infected, 592 were hospitalised, said Lari.

A total of 1,379,922 people have recovered from the disease and been discharged from hospitals, while 3,720 remain in intensive care units, she added.

According to the spokeswoman, 10,734,379 tests for the virus have been carried out in Iran as of Friday.

Iran announced its first cases of Covid-19 on February 19, 2020.