Twitter has hidden a post on the account of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on a COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theory.
The tweet from the account of Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, claimed that COVID-19 vaccines imported from the U.S. or U.K. were “completely untrustworthy.”
“It’s not unlikely they would want to contaminate other nations,” the tweet said, in reference to America and Britain. The tweet also claimed that French coronavirus vaccines “aren’t trustworthy.”
A tweet on the leader’s Farsi-language account that appeared to make similar claims was still visible.
On Friday, Khamenei announced a ban on importing American and British vaccines. Iran’s Red Crescent said it will not import scores of thousands of American Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that a group of U.S.-based benefactors planned to donate to Iran.
However, Khamenei has OK’d vaccine imports from other “safe” places abroad.
Iran in December began the human test phase of its homemade vaccine that it is expected to distribute in the spring.
Iran has struggled to stem the worst virus outbreak in the Middle East, which has infected over 1.2 million people and killed more than 56,000.
