About his 5-day-visit paid to Iran and its medical centers active in treating coronavirus patients, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Richard Bernan noted that Iran has applied suitable strategies and priorities to fight against the virus outbreak.
"We are influenced by the cooperation among various Iranian sectors in this regard," he said.
"According to the achieved experiences by China and other countries, we have made some agreements with Iranian health officials and have conducted useful negotiations on transfer of knowledge about the virus behaviors," he added.
The other visiting WHO Representative in Iran, Christoph Hamelmann, for his turn, said the international body will cooperate with Iran to provide the country with international aid.
"Presently, there are 30 laboratories in Iran active in fight against the virus and 20 more are to start operation in future," he added.
Earlier on March 12, the Director-General of the WHO said Iran is doing its best in the fight against the novel coronavirus despite a lack of sufficient equipment and facilities mainly caused by the US sanctions.
"We know that Iran is doing its best, all it can ... that's what I appreciated," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
"They need lots of supplies, and ... we have tried to support as much as we can, but there is still a shortage," he added.
"We're trying to mobilize more support for Iran," Adhanom said.
Iran’s Health Ministry Spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said on Saturday that the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak, officially known as COVID-19, in Iran has risen to 611 with 12,729 confirmed cases. As of Saturday, 1,365 more cases have tested positive with the virus in the past 24 hours, increasing the total number of infections in Iran to 12,729, said Jahanpour. Some 4,339 patients infected by the new coronavirus have so far recovered from the disease, he added.
MNA/4878151
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