Iran Sets New Single-Day Record for COVID-19 Deaths
IRAN NEWS NATIONAL DESK
TEHRAN – Iran recorded its worst day of new deaths since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with 337 confirmed dead on Monday.
The grim milestone represents a significant spike from the previous single-day death toll record of 279. The Health Ministry also announced 4,251 new infections, pushing the total count to 534,630.
Fatalities have soared in recent weeks, as authorities struggle to contain the virus’s spread months into the pandemic. Health officials say the capital, Tehran, has run out of intensive care beds.
Yesterday the Spokeswoman for Iran’s Ministry of Health, Sima Sadat Lari, announced in her presser that 534,631 people in the country have been infected with the coronavirus, and 431,360 of the total infected people have recovered.
According to definitive laboratory findings from yesterday to October 19, 2020, newly diagnosed patients with COVID-19 reached to 4,251 cases out of whom 1,948 of patients were hospitalized, Lari stated.
She added that in the past 24 hours, 337 COVID-19 patients had lost their lives, bringing the total death toll to 30,712.
4,771 COVID-19 patients are in critical condition.
“So far, 4,540,455 COVID-19 diagnosis tests have been conducted across the country,” the Health Ministry Spokeswoman noted.
She pointed out that Provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, East Azarbaijan, South Khorasan, Semnan, Qazvin, Lorestan, Ardabil, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Gilan, Bushehr, Zanjan, Ilam, Khorasan Razavi, Mazandaran, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Alborz, West Azarbaijan, Markazi, Kerman, North Khorasan, Hamadan, Yazd, and Kordestan are regarded as red zones.
According to the Health Ministry Spokeswoman, provinces of Hormozgan, Fars, and Golestan are on alert.
Meanwhile yesterday, Director-General of Drugs and Controlled Substances of Iran’s Ministry of Health Heidar Mohammadi said on Monday that Iran has joined the World Health Organization’s initiative for fair and equitable distribution of vaccine doses.
Mohammadi said that the Ministry of Health has signed the letter of Iran’s joining the COVAX initiative and has officially become a part of it.
He added Iran will have its share of the vaccine doses whenever the vaccine is produced.
The initiative plans to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.
Earlier, Deputy Minister of Health Ali-Reza Raeesi had said that the WHO had given sufficient time to Iran to pay the pre-purchase of the vaccine.
The goal of COVAX is by the end of 2021 to deliver two billion doses of safe, effective vaccines that have passed regulatory approval and/or WHO prequalification.
More than 160 countries have joined the program. China and the U.S. have not joined yet.
More than 140 medicine companies are trying to make the vaccine, some of which in the U.S., Europe, and China have had some achievements and have entered the phase of trials on humans.
Iran’s Minister of Health Saeed Namaki has said that Iran is trying to make the vaccine as well, adding that the trials in animals, such as monkeys, have been successful and that the vaccine will be tested on humans in the near future.
