Narrative of a citizen in Isfahan: My mother died of coronavirus, but they wrote it was cancer
Masoud Borjian, a cultural and social activist living in Isfahan, posted his mother's death certificate on Twitter, saying that the cemetery officials where she was buried recorded her cause of death as cancer, rather than coronavirus.
This cultural and social activist living in Isfahan announced on Tuesday, May 2, by publishing images of her mother's death certificate, which stated the cause of death was coronavirus infection and cardiorespiratory arrest, that the Isfahan cemetery, where her mother's body was buried, had recorded the cause of death as cancer in the official documents.
According to the cultural activist, the death certificate listed breast cancer and high blood pressure as underlying diseases. However, Aramistan insisted that her mother had breast cancer in the past, citing this disease as the main cause of her death.
This is not the first time that the Islamic Republic has attempted to conceal the timing of the outbreak in Iran by changing the number of deaths from the virus. Previously, a doctor working at a hospital in Shiraz told VOA that out of every five deaths from the novel coronavirus, COVID-19 was listed as the actual cause of death for only one.
In an audio file provided to VOA, the Iranian doctor said that they were asked to record causes such as acute respiratory illness or heart attack for the majority of coronavirus deaths.
According to available information, from the very beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, the authorities of the Islamic Republic tried to conceal the spread of the virus, the number of infected people, and the number of deaths due to the virus; according to a World Health Organization official, the figures announced by Iranian authorities regarding coronavirus cases are only one-fifth of the actual number of infected people.
According to the latest published reports, the statistics announced by the authorities of the Islamic Republic as of Tuesday, May 2, 2020, indicate that to date, the total number of people infected with this virus in Iran has reached 84,802, and 5,297 people have lost their lives due to this virus.
Source: Voice of America
