Visiting Zahedan, the provincial capital, Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi said Thursday the Covid-19 pandemic in Sistan-Baluchestan had reached “supercritical” level. While no time frame was reported, Hossein-Ali Shariari, Chairman of the Parliament’s Health Committee, said Thursday a three- or four-fold increase had come with a new wave.
Harirchi attributed a spike in cases and deaths to the spreading Delta mutant of the virus as well as lack of social distancing in campaign gatherings for the June 18 presidential election.
Dr Mohammad Hashemi-Shahri, head of the Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, said Thursday that with 1,174 new cases in the previous 24-hour period, the total number of cases in the province − which has a population of over 2.7 million − had reached 55,920 (2 percent, around half the national average).
Media reported Thursday that all hospital beds in the province were full. Hamid Souri, head of the ministry’s National Covid Swift Response Committee, said additional health workers had been sent to Sistan-Baluchistan to assist.
In a program on state television Wednesday, Harirchi said most cities and towns in the province were considered critical and coded red. Speaking to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) Thursday, Moeinoddin Saeedi, a parliamentarian from Chabahar in Sistan-Baluchestan, criticized the slow progress of vaccination.
Iran’s vaccination program has made little headway as the country failed to purchase enough imports while working on home-grown vaccines. There has been no international evaluation or comprehensive reports about the efficacy of Iranian-made vaccines.
Source » trackpersia