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TEHRAN, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran will start receiving AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses in February trough the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) platform, Iranian Minister of Health and Medical Education Saeed Namaki announced on Wednesday.

"AstraZeneca informed us the night before last that it will start delivering 4.2 million doses in February within the framework of COVAX," Namaki said in a video announcement broadcasted by official news agency IRNA.

Namaki also said that Iran's Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute has been authorized to start clinical trials of its vaccine candidate, and they will hopefully start the trials next week.

At her daily briefing, spokeswoman for the ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, said 6,870 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the past 24 hours, raising the country's overall count to 1,438,286 infections, state TV reported.

Of the newly infected, she noted, 701 had to be hospitalized.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, she added, 79 new deaths related to the coronavirus were registered, making for a death toll of 58,189 in the country.

She said 1,229,391 COVID-19 patients have as of Wednesday recovered or been released from Iranian hospitals.

So far, 9,449,685 tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in Iran, according to the spokesperson.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19, 2020. Enditem