Iranians facing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines at home are travelling to Armenia as tourists in growing numbers to get inoculated there for free, according to data from Armenia’s tourism board, writes Reuters.

Armenia has approved three vaccines against COVID-19 – Russia’s Sputnik V, China’s CoronaVac and AstraZeneca’s vaccine and initially offered all of them free to foreign visitors.

The Armenian Tourism Committee said more than 8,500 Iranian citizens had visited in June, up from 5,000 a month earlier.

“We didn’t have any special plans to develop vaccine tourism, it happened accidentally”, - said Alfred Kocharyan, deputy head of the Armenian Tourism Committee, adding that people were also coming from India to get free shots.

“But demand for vaccines has created an opportunity for our travel agencies which I encourage them to take”.