COVID-19: 'One person dies in every 12 minutes,' says Iranian health ministry

Iran’s health ministry on March 24 reportedly said that one Iranian is killed by Coronavirus outbreak in every 12 minutes. Over the past week, the deadly virus has seen an upward trend in the capital Tehran and some other Iranian provinces.

According to the head of Public Relations and Information Center of Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Kianush Jahanpur, the rate of infection in Tehran stands at 13 per cent, while the provinces of Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi and East Azarbaijan have recently witnessed rising infection as well as more death cases. 

Rouhani defends government

Currently, Iran has more than 24,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and the deadly virus has claimed more than 1,900 lives in the country. However, 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 added, “I think we have intervened significantly”. 

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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. 

While Jahanpur said that one person dies 12 minutes, 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.

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