Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, February 4, 2020—While China and many countries across the world have prioritized the fight against the deadly coronavirus, the Iranian regime is neglecting the threat to the health of the Iranian people and is not taking the necessary precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus. There have so far neither been any limits on flights to and from China and no transparency by Iranian officials on the matter.
The focal point of the fight against the virus is in China, where authorities have created a 1,000-bed hospital in less than two weeks and have allocated immense human resources, scientific talent, and technology to help contain and reverse the spread of the pandemic.
By Monday noon, the death toll of the virus had reached more than 360 in China, and the number of people infected with the disease was approx. 17,000. The deadly coronavirus has also spread to other countries, setting a state of emergency. On Sunday, the first death was reported in the Philippines, a Chinese national who had traveled there a month earlier.
But despite the very imminent threat, the Iranian regime has been ignoring the implications of the spread of the coronavirus. Unlike other countries, Iranian authorities have set no limits on travel from China to Iran. According to state-run media outlets, flights from China to Iran continue as before and on Sunday, there were three flights from Wuhan, the hotbed of the coronavirus, to Iran.
Some reports indicate that coronavirus infection cases have been spotted in Isfahan and Tabriz.
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Isfahan University said, “A 29-year-old individual with coronavirus symptoms referred to the Farabi hospital in Isfahan and is under special care.”
But the same person was released from the hospital a few hours later without any clarification or explanations on the reason.
Unlike Iran, many governments such as the U.S. and Australia have banned the entrance of foreign nationals who have recently traveled to China. South Korea has also banned the entrance of people who have traveled to China’s Wuhan. The U.S. has declared that any American citizen who has traveled to Wuhan will be quarantined for two weeks and monitored for symptoms of infection.
But in Iran, negligence over health threats adds to the long list of mismanagement and corrupt policies that threaten the lives of the Iranian people.
In October 2019, hundreds of villagers in Lordegan county, Charmahal Bakhtiari province, were infected with the HIV virus as a result of negligence by health authorities conducting glucose tests. The event resulted in mass protests in the province. The regime responded not by taking medical measures but by dispatching security forces to quell the protests and establish an undeclared martial law.
