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Coronavirus: 50 dead in Iranian city of Qom Coronavirus: Iran denies cover-up after reports of 50 deaths
(32 minutes later)
Death toll is significantly higher than figures Iranian officials reported hours earlier Tehran rejects claim death toll is more than four times higher than official figures suggest
A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from coronavirus this month, Iran’s semiofficial Ilna news agency reported on Monday. The Iranian government has denied trying to cover up the full extent of the coronavirus outbreak after reports suggested that the death toll from the disease was more than four times higher than official figures claim.
The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier by and which stood at 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV. On Monday, a lawmaker from Qom – a Shia holy city 75 miles (120 km) south of the capital, Tehran, accused Iran’s health minister of lying about the scale of the outbreak.
An official from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted by Ilna saying that more than 250 people had been quarantined in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shia Muslims from across Iran and other countries. According to the semi-official Ilna news agency, which is close to reformists, the lawmaker, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, said there had been 50 deaths from the coronavirus in Qom alone.
He said the 50 deaths date as far back as 13 February. Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on 19 February. “The rest of the media have not published this figure, but we prefer not to censor what concerns the coronavirus because people’s lives are in danger,” Ilna editor Fatemeh Madiani told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The new coronavirus originated in China sometime around December. There are concerns that clusters in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread. But the country’s deputy health minister rejected the report. In a news conference broadcast live on state television, Iraj Harirchi said that 12 people had died from the coronavirus and 66 had been infected.
A top World Health Organization official expressed concerns Monday over the virus’s spread. “We are worried about the situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran and in Italy,” the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a news conference in Stockholm via a video link. “I categorically deny this information,” he said, adding: “This is not the time for political confrontations. The coronavirus is a national problem.”
Iran’s government pledged to be transparent about the outbreak.
“We will announce any figures [we have] on the number of deaths throughout the country. We pledge to be transparent about the reporting of figures,” its spokesman Ali Rabiei said.
Iran has been scrambling to contain the Covid-19 outbreak since it announced the first two deaths in Qom on Wednesday last week.
Since then, it has said a total of 12 people have died from the virus among 61 infections.
Authorities in Iran have closed schools across much of the country for a second day and as neighbouring countries reported infections from travellers from Iran, prompting several to shut their borders to Iranian citizens.Authorities in Iran have closed schools across much of the country for a second day and as neighbouring countries reported infections from travellers from Iran, prompting several to shut their borders to Iranian citizens.
The number of deaths compared with the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.The number of deaths compared with the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.
Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus. Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus. Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.
Kuwait announced on Monday its first cases of the virus, saying that three travellers returning from Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad were confirmed infected with coronavirus. On Sunday, experts warned that the disease was outpacing attempts to contain it.
Iran, however, has not yet reported any confirmed cases of the virus in Mashhad, raising questions about how the government is carrying out tests and quarantines. “The tipping point after which our ability to prevent a global pandemic ends seems a lot closer after the past 24 hours,” said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia and an authority on the new coronavirus infection.
Iran has confirmed cases so far in five cities, including the capital, Tehran. A local mayor in Tehran is among those infected and in quarantine. Hunter said the situation in Iran would have major implications for the Middle East.
Kuwait has been evacuating 750 citizens from Iran and testing them as they enter the country after saying that Iran had barred its medical workers from testing travellers at an exit terminal in Iran, despite an agreement to do so. “It is unlikely that Iran will have the resources and facilities to adequately identify cases and adequately manage them if case numbers are large,” he said.
The three returning from Iran to Kuwait who were infected with the virus are being treated in Kuwait and were identified as a Kuwaiti male, 53, a Saudi male, 61, and the third was not identified except as a 21-year-old. The news was reported by the Kuwait News Agency quoting the Kuwait health ministry. “A further problem with the Iranian cases is wider armed conflicts in the region. During armed conflicts borders between countries become porous and urban and health care facilities are often targeted and destroyed. As we have seen with ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and poliomyelitis in Syria, war facilitates the spread of infectious disease and hampers public health responses.
Iranian travellers with the virus have also been confirmed in Canada, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Italian authorities are also rushing to contain the continent’s first major outbreak of the disease after a fourth death in the country.
The outbreak in Iran has centred mostly on the city of Qom, but spread rapidly over the past few days as Iranians went to the polls on Friday for nationwide parliamentary elections, with many voters wearing masks and stocking up on hand sanitiser. The Italian government has introduced stringent internal travel restrictions, closing off close off the worst-hit areas in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.
Iran is already facing diplomatic and economic isolation under US pressure. The virus threatens to isolate Iran even further as countries shut their borders to Iranians. Some 50,000 people in 11 north Italian towns have been in lockdown since Friday night, with police patrolling the streets and fines imposed on anyone caught entering or leaving outbreak areas.
Soccer fans across the country will not be allowed to attend matches, and shows in movie theatres and other venues were suspended until Friday. Authorities have begun daily sanitisation of Tehran’s metro, which is used by 3 million people, and public transportation cars in the city. The number of cases of the virus in the country rose to 152 on Saturday, and the latest victim died in the Lombardy city of Cremona.
Despite the outbreak, France’s junior transport minister, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, said on Monday morning that there was no need to close down transport borders between France and Italy.
“Closing down the borders would make no sense, as the circulation of the virus is not just limited to administrative borders,” Djebbari told BFM Business.
Austria suspended train services over the Alps to Italy for about four hours late on Sunday before restarting them after two travellers tested negative for coronavirus. A train carrying about 300 passengers from Venice, Italy, to Munich in Germany was halted on the Italian side of the Brenner Pass before being allowed to continue its journey after the two tested negative, authorities said.