Iran kicked off on Sunday the third phase of its clinical studies of its Razi Cov Pars vaccine, Pars news agency reported. “The third phase will be carried out in Tehran and Alborz provinces with the participation of some 40,000 volunteers,” said Mohammad Hossein Fallah Mehrabadi, Vice President for Research and Technology Affairs at the parent Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute and spokesman for the project. He said people aged 18 or older, who have not contracted the coronavirus, are eligible to take part in the trial. “Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute produced 400,000 doses of the vaccine last month,” he added. Razi Cov Pars is a recombinant protein subunit vaccine containing the COVID-19 spike protein. Fallah Mehrabadi said that during the second clinical trials phase, “we observed more than 75 percent of blood and cell immunity,” adding that this vaccine is one of the few to have stimulated cell immunity. Last month, the Barekat Pharmaceutical Group announced that nearly 8 million doses of the home-made coronavirus vaccine, COV-Iran Barekat, have been produced and that 2.2 million doses have been delivered to the health ministry. Meanwhile, the ministry reported on Sunday 25,870 new COVID-19 cases, taking the country’s total to 5,129,407. It added that the country registered a total of 110,674 deaths with 610 new fatalities in the past 24 hours. A total of 4,362,814 people have recovered from the disease, while 7,689 remain in intensive care units. Iran has recently started to register a decrease in the number of daily infections after an enormous surge of cases due to the spread of the Delta variant across the country.