Doctors Inside Iran Believe Coronavirus Is More Serious Than Reported, and Getting Worse

Doctors Inside Iran Believe Coronavirus Is More Serious Than Reported, and Getting Worse

With dozens of publicly known cases and multiple deaths, Iran is now the epicenter of the coronavirus in the Middle East. Doctors inside the Islamic Republic say the country is now grappling with an “epidemic,” and the response has been hampered not just by government inaction and disinformation but also economic sanctions.

“We think that this virus has been in Iran for the past three to four weeks and has circulated throughout the country. Right now in Iran we are facing a coronavirus epidemic,” said a senior medical doctor at the Masih Daneshvari hospital in Tehran, the country’s top pulmonary public hospital and the main facility overseeing coronavirus patients.

Public officials have not confirmed how the disease arrived in Iran, but it appears to be the locus for the regional outbreak. So far, Afghanistan, Georgia, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Oman reported their first cases of coronavirus, all linked to passengers traveling from Iran.

Since it first announced the presence of COVID-19 last week, Iran has so far reported a total of 245 cases and 26 deaths, a far higher fatality rate than seen elsewhere. The doctor, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said the official tally vastly underestimates the true number of cases. “We didn’t have a way to test people earlier and don’t have the capacity to screen everyone,” he said, in a telephone interview. “Let me put it this way, if in general two out of 100 corona patients die, in Iran, if we now have 20 deaths that means we have 1,000 infected patients.”

The disease is now widely spread across Iran, with the largest concentration reported in the lush northern province of Gilan the holy city of Qom. Earlier this week, a lawmaker from the holy city, Ahmad Amirabadi , announced the death toll in Qom “has reached 50 people”— a claim that was immediately rejected by government officials, including the deputy Health Minister Iraj Haririchi who also advised against mandatory quarantine and called it a “pre world war era” strategy. On Tuesday Harirchi himself tested positive for the virus and is now undergoing treatment.Confirms Official Running Its Anti-Coronavirus Task Force Has Contracted CoronavirThe head of Iran’s counter-coronavirus task force has tested positive for the virus himself, authorities announced Tuesday, showing the challenges facing the Islamic Republic amid concerns the outbreak may be far wider than officially acknowledged

Since the government’s public acknowledgment of the coronavirus in Iran, a number of public officials have been diagnosed with the disease. As well as Haririchi, they include Tehran’s reformist MP, Mahmoud Sadeghi , a local mayor from Tehran’s 13 district, and the head of Qom’s medical university, Dr. Mohammad Reza Ghadir.

Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines