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Special Features

Worries Persist Over "Fragile" Coronavirus Situation in 228 Cities

December 14, 2020
Pouyan Khoshhal
4 min read
Officials claim sanctions are preventing Iran from obtaining a Covid-19 vaccine, but the US Treasury has already given the go-ahead for Iran to buy from the WHO's COVAX initiative
Officials claim sanctions are preventing Iran from obtaining a Covid-19 vaccine, but the US Treasury has already given the go-ahead for Iran to buy from the WHO's COVAX initiative
Currently 12 cities in Iran are in a red state of alert, 288 are rated orange and 148 are yellow
Currently 12 cities in Iran are in a red state of alert, 288 are rated orange and 148 are yellow

The Iranian Ministry of Health claims that currently only a four provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, Fars and Kerman are in a “red” state of alert with regard to the spread of coronavirus. Nevertheless, worries persist that the situation in the 228 cities designated “orange” is delicate and could easily worsen again.  

Conflicting statements continue to be made by officials in discussions about a possible Iranian-made Covid-19 vaccine. Yesterday health minister Saeed Namaki claimed that an Iranian vaccine would be ready in the spring but today, health ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari said that if the clinical testing proves successful by late January, vaccine distribution could begin by early summer. According to Dr. Lari, four domestic companies are currently engaged in the development of an Iranian vaccine and one of these is now in the phase of clinical testing on humans. High-risk groups, she said, would be the first to receive a vaccine.

In the meantime, Dr. Lari also reported that Iran is in talks with India, Russia and China about purchasing a foreign-made coronavirus vaccine. “Because of American sanctions, we have difficulty in conducting currency transactions to buy vaccines,” she said.

While senior health ministry officials have been complaining on a daily basis about the difficulties in purchasing the vaccine from COVAX – a global initiative launched by the World Health Organization that aims to provide equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines –  the US Treasury Department is understood to have given the green light to Iran buying vaccines from COVAX. Despite this, Iranian officials have also said the country cannot buy the Pfizer vaccine because of its need to be stored at low temperatures.

“This vaccine needs to be kept at 70 degrees below zero both during transportation and in storage,” said Siamak Sameei, director-general of the Ministry of Health’s laboratories department. “We don’t have the necessary facilities for this and many other countries do not have such facilities either. In our country, currently we have only equipment that can maintain a temperature of minus 20 degrees.”

Even though the number of hospitalizations in the city of Tehran has fallen by 40 percent, the situation in this city remains “fragile”, said Nader Tavakoli, deputy director of Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce. However, he reported that all hospitals in Tehran now have beds available for new patients. “Coronavirus patients in government hospitals have to pay only 8 to 10 percent of the costs, and the rest will be covered by insurance,” he said, “but if patients are in financial difficulty they do not have to pay even this percentage.”

 

Provinces Round-up

Since the coronavirus outbreak 3,000 nurses in East Azerbaijan are known to have been infected with coronavirus and five have died,  reported Abdollah Safari, East Azerbaijan University of Medical Sciences’ director of nursing. Safari added that a total number of nurses in this province is around nine thousand — 80 percent of them women – and currently the province is facing a shortage of 4,000 nurses.

In the past 24 hours 10 more Covid-19 patients have died in Kermanshah, bringing the province’s known death toll to 1,347. During the same 24 hours 52 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in Kermanshah and 94 were discharged after recovering. Currently 332 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized across the province. Of this number 103 are being treated at ICUs and 21 of them are connected to ventilators.

Dr. Mohammad Reza Ghadir, president of Qom University of Medical Sciences, reported that from now on, only two hospitals, Shahid Beheshti and Kamkar, will admit Covid-19 patients.  The 20 remaining patients in two other hospitals, Forghani and Imam Reza, will be transferred to these sites. He also reported that coronavirus testing in the province has increased by 30 to 50 percent in recent weeks, adding that 10,000 “rapid test” kits that can give a result in 30 minutes have been acquired for outpatients.

The situation in Alborz appears to be relatively stable. In the past 24 hours 57 new patients with coronavirus symptoms have been hospitalized in the province, bringing the total number of hospitalizations in Alborz to 556, reported Dr. Mohammad Fathi, president of Alborz University of Medical Sciences. In the same 24 hours eight Covid-19 patients died and the known death toll in the province now stands at 2,470.

In Kurdistan, 121 new Covid-19 cases have been confirmed. Currently 276 coronavirus patients are hospitalized in the province, 155 of them in the provincial capital of Sanandaj. With the death of four more patients in the past 24 hours, the official death toll in the province since the pandemic started now stands at 999.

 

Iran’s Latest Coronavirus Statistics

In her daily briefing for December 14, health ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari announced the official coronavirus statistics for the past 24 hours:

 

Dr. Lari reported that currently 12 cities are red, 288 are orange and 148 are yellow.

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