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Publish Date : 15 March 2020 - 00:23  ,  
News ID: 7011

Iran Conduting 6,000 Coronavirus Tests Per Day

TEHRAN(Basirat): Head of Pasteur Institute of Iran (IPI) announced on Saturday that the country conducts 6,000 coronavirus tests at 50 laboratories everyday.
 
Iran Conduting 6,000 Coronavirus Tests Per Day

Ali-Reza Beiglari said that the tests for coronavirus will reach 10,000 a day in the next one or two weeks.

Over 220,000 coronavirus test kits have been donated to Iran, about 80,000 of them have been used, he added.

Results of the tests are declared within 48 hours, the IPI head pointed out.

He noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) has appreciated IPI and Iran's Ministry of Health for their efforts to launch and equip several laboratories within three weeks.

"To diagnose coronavirus, chest CT scan is more accurately helpful than the test and the finding is based on sharing experience with the Chinese health officials," Beiglari said.

Iranian Health Ministry Spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour announced on Friday that the new coronavirus outbreak in the country has claimed 514 lives out of 11,364 confirmed cases of infection so far, adding that 3,529 coronavirus patients have recovered.

Based on the latest reports, in the past 24 hours, 1,289 new cases were confirmed with the coronavirus in the country, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 11,364, Jahanpour declared this noon, adding that 3,529 coronavirus patients have recovered and discharged from hospitals as of Friday.

The health ministry official went on recounting that 85 deaths were registered in the past 24 hours in the country, rising the death toll to 514.

Jahanpour highlighted that the only way to defeat the outbreak is to stay at home and avoid unnecessary travels.  

Novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a new respiratory disease first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. The World Health Organization on Wednesday described the outbreak as a pandemic.

According to the latest reports, the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has infected 134,818 people in 127 countries, claiming 4,984 lives.

Mainland China reported 21 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, putting the country’s total infections at 80,814 and a death toll of 3,177.

On Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif had written a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, urging lifting of the illegal sanctions, which have greatly hampered the Islamic Republic’s fight against the new coronavirus epidemic.

Zarif reminded in his letter how the renewed sanctions had come in the way of legal trade with Iran amid the outbreak, adding that American officials had recently set some preconditions with the aim of preventing sales of medicine, medical equipment, and humanitarian commodities to the Islamic Republic.

On Wednesday, the Iranian foreign ministry declared that despite Washington’s claims of cooperation to transfer drugs to Iran via the new Swiss-launched payment mechanism, the US is troubling the process amid the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

Although US claims that medicines and medical equipment are not under sanctions, they have practically blocked the transfer of Iran’s financial resources in other countries into the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said.

As the death toll from the virus surges, Iran intensifies its preventive safety measures. Closures of schools and universities have been extended for the next two weeks.

The government also imposed travel restrictions, especially on Iran’s north, which is among the red zones. The country has also adopted strict digital health control procedures at airports to spot possible infections.

Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced last week that a new national mobilization plan would be implemented across the country to fight against the coronavirus epidemic and more effectively treat patients.

Namaki said that the plan will include all the 17,000 health centers and the 9,000 medical and clinical centers in all cities, suburban areas and villages.

He added that the plan will include home quarantine, noting that infected people will receive the necessary medicines and advice, but they are asked to stay at home.

Namaki said that people with a more serious condition will stay at the hospitals, adding that the public places will be disinfected, the entries of infected towns and cities will be controlled to diagnose and quarantine the infected cases.

He added that the necessary equipment and facilities have been provided, expressing the hope that the epidemic would be curbed.

Namaki said that the number of medical laboratories to test coronavirus infection has reached 22, and will increase to 40 soon.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says Iran's response to the virus has so far been up to the mark. Still, it says the US sanctions are a big challenge, and Washington would be complicit in the rising death toll in Iran if it would not remove its sanctions.

The World Health Organization has considered priorities in combating coronavirus and Islamic Republic of Iran obeys and follows up priorities as defined by WHO.

The WHO is dispatching separate delegations to all countries.

Source: MehrNEWS

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