Rejected because of Iranian vaccine

6,500 Iranian Hajj pilgrims who had been inoculated with Iranian-made Barekat vaccines were denied entry by Saudi Arabia.

JameJam claims that they were all required to have a Riyadh-approved vaccine.

A total of 1 million Muslims from both inside and outside Saudi Arabia will be allowed to participate in this year's pilgrimage. Iranians are estimated to make around 40% of these.

In April, Iran Air announced that Iraq has banned visitors who had received the Iranian vaccine.

In Iraq, there have been at least 25,000 reported deaths and the country's vaccination rate is only 18%, far short of the WHO's mandated 40 percent by January 2022. Iran had a vaccination rate of 70%, however, there were 141,000 reported deaths.

At least six local vaccines have been approved by the Iranian government, despite that, some have not been tested. The vast majority of Iran's 147 million doses are Sinopharm vaccines, which have been approved by the World Health Organization.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei imposed a ban on the importation of American and British vaccines in January.

The most well-connected vaccine maker, Barakat, allegedly received $1 billion in advance and only delivered a fraction of the number promised, according to a former parliament member.