Over 16,700 coronavirus patients recover in Iran

The total number of coronavirus cases in Iran rose to 50,468 on Thursday, of whom over 16,700 have recovered and dismissed from the hospital, the Health Ministry said.

According to Press TV, Health Ministry Spokesman Kianoosh Jahanpoor said on Thursday “The death toll from COVID-19 in Iran has risen to 3,160 after 124 patients died over the past 24 hours.”

The number of people tested positive for the coronavirus in the country has hit 50,468, he noted, saying 2,875 new cases have been detected since yesterday.

A total of 16,711 patients have been discharged from the hospital after recovering from the disease, he added.

Iran has been among the countries hardest hit by the new coronavirus, which first showed up in China in late December 2019 before spreading to other parts of the world.

Meanwhile, a senior medical official supervising the tests across the Iranian labs said on Wednesday that the number of tests will double in the coming days to help authorities better cope with the COVID-19 outbreak.

Alireza Beglari, who heads the Pasteur Institute of Iran (IPI), the flagship organization fighting infectious diseases in the country, also said that the number of labs carrying out tests for COVID-19 had increased to a total of 90.

The announcement comes as several Iranian biomedicine companies have obtained certificates from health authorities to produce COVID-19 testing kits on a commercial scale.

One of those companies said last week that is will supply 80,0000 testing kits to the labs each week.

Beglarei said that the IPI had certified more than five of those companies from a total of 50 that had responded to a government call for developing the test kits.

“We are self-sufficient from (companies) abroad,” he said in a briefing with reporters in Tehran, adding that increased capacity for testing would strengthen government’s screening programs for COVID-19.

ME