In Iran, 'one person dies every 10 minutes' due to coronavirus infection

While Iran has become one of most hard-hit countries of deadly coronavirus outside China, an Iranian health official reportedly said on March 19 that the COVID-19 kills one person in every ten minutes in the Islamic Republic and every hour, at least 50 people get infected with the pathogen. This revelation was tweeted by Dr Kianush Jahanpur as the country’s death toll surpasses 1,200 and has now infected at least 18,400 people. The pandemic has disrupted many lives since it was originated in December 2019 and has claimed over 10,000 lives, worldwide, with more than 245,749 confirmed cases.

Jahanpur said, “Based on our information, every 10 minutes one person dies from the coronavirus and some 50 people become infected with the virus every hour in Iran.”

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Rouhani defends government

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defended its government’s efforts to stem the spread of the fatal virus and said that despite not announcing a lockdown, the government as “intervened significantly” and stopped the disease from spreading. Rouhani said that “some ask why the government isn’t intervening” but he further adds, “I think we have intervened significantly”. Further lauding his government, Iranian President said that “great things” have been done in order to contain the easily spread COVID-19. He also assured that the country will “get past the hard days”, however, despite other preventive measures, Iran is yet to impose any lockdown while the virus has spread to all its 31 provinces. 

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While Jahanpur said that one person dies every minute, Iran still reportedly managed to cure a 103-year-old woman of COVID-19 infection despite the significant evidence that elderly people are most vulnerable to the pathogen. The unnamed woman had been hospitalised in the central city of Semnan for at least seven days, and reportedly the head of the hospital, Navid Danayi has said that she was “discharged after making a complete recovery”. 

The 103-year-old woman was also the second elderly patient who has been fully cured of the disease. While to total coronavirus cases in Iran have reached over 18,000 as of March 20, a 91-year-old man from Kerman, in the southeast of Iran also survived after contracting COVID-19.

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