Three Cases of South African COVID-19 Variant Identified in Iran

Iran’s Health Minister announced that three people have contracted the mutated coronavirus variant from South Africa in one of the country’s southern provinces.

Saied Namaki said on Tuesday, April 27th that last night there was a report of three cases of the South African coronavirus variant observed in one of the southern provinces, and they are currently following up with re-testing methods to confirm it.

He also stated that given his knowledge of the presence and spread of the South African and Brazilian variants in neighboring countries, there had been correspondence to prevent entry and exit from neighboring countries, but the matter was not properly followed up.

On Tuesday, Iran banned the sale of airplane tickets to 15 destinations, including South Africa and several other African countries.

Mr. Namaki said regarding the Indian mutated variant, “We are hearing its footsteps as well. We are examining all Indian and Pakistani nationals, and yesterday in one of the cities we evaluated cases of Iranians infected with coronavirus, and we hope these people are not infected with the Indian mutated variant.”

According to Iran’s Health Minister, many vaccines have not been effective against this variant, and if they are effective, the response is minimal.

He also predicted that the number of deaths from coronavirus in the country will increase in the coming days.

Source: Radio Farda