Corona Spreads from Iran to Austria and New Zealand

An Austrian newspaper reported the possibility of a member of Austria’s Foreign Minister’s delegation contracting coronavirus during a trip to Iran. New Zealand also announced that the country’s first confirmed coronavirus case, currently in quarantine, recently returned from Iran.

The Austrian newspaper “Kurier” writes that an Austrian diplomat who traveled to Tehran with Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s Foreign Minister, has been quarantined at the “Kaiser Franz Joseph” hospital in Vienna due to suspected coronavirus infection.

Schallenberg traveled to Tehran last week in an official effort to save the JCPOA (nuclear agreement) and met and held talks with several Iranian officials, including Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s President and Foreign Minister.

Additionally, according to France’s news agency, New Zealand has reported its first suspected case of coronavirus, which involves a woman in her sixties who recently returned from Iran.

The New Zealand citizen is now in quarantine, and her family members have been called to the hospital for medical examination.

The latest official statistics from Iranian authorities regarding coronavirus patients indicate 245 cases and 26 deaths.

Kianush Jahanpour, head of public relations at Iran’s Ministry of Health, emphasized in a tweet that the rate of coronavirus infection in the coming days will “continue to rise.” He urged the Iranian people to avoid unnecessary contact and travel while maintaining personal hygiene.

Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor of Qom University of Medical Sciences reported that Mohammad Reza Qadir, the university’s president, two of his deputies, and 10 Qom doctors and nurses have contracted coronavirus.

According to ISNA, Ali Abrazeh said: “If health issues are not properly observed in Qom, we may need up to two or three thousand beds. So far, 18 people have died from this disease in Qom, all of whom were over 55 years old.”

He described the capacity of Kamkar and Farqani hospitals in Qom as “full” and noted: “If this disease reaches its peak in Qom, we will prepare a field hospital.”

“Qom Quarantine Is Not the Right Cultural Approach”

Ali Abrazeh considered “home quarantine for one to two months during the Nowruz holidays” an “effective solution” to prevent the spread of the virus and said regarding quarantining Qom: “This is not culturally appropriate.”

The World Health Organization has called the spread of coronavirus in Iran alarming. Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of the World Health Organization, warned that Iran has so far had the highest death toll from this disease outside China and may be facing a “worse” outbreak than what has been reported so far.

Mike Ryan, head of the organization’s health emergency programs, also made similar remarks: “I don’t think this is necessarily related to clinical care, but rather more related to surveillance.”

Mohammadali Vakili, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s leadership, reported on his personal Twitter page that testing of 30 people in Parliament regarding COVID-19 infection has been conducted, with four of them so far testing “coronavirus positive.”

Iranian people have been advised to stay in their homes as much as possible. Fereidoun Mohammadi, head of the central coordinating office for travel services, said regarding Nowruz trips: “The decision on whether Nowruz trips will take place will be up to the Ministry of Health.”

Infection with the new coronavirus, named “SARS-CoV-2,” has been reported since December of last year in China. Since then, more than 83 people worldwide have contracted the disease, of which 78,824 cases are from China.

Two thousand 858 coronavirus patients worldwide have died so far and 36,436 people have recovered.

In the list of coronavirus cases after China, South Korea ranks second, followed by Italy, then Iran. In Germany, 21 cases of infection with no deaths have been reported so far. The highest death-to-infection ratio belongs to Iran.

Source: DW