DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on Monday.
The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier and which stood at just 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.
A lawmaker from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted in ILNA saying that more than 250 people are in quarantined in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shiites from across Iran and other countries.
He said the 50 deaths date as far back as February 13. Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on February 19.
Speaking to ILNA, Farahani said the situation in Qom is “not good.”
“I think performance of the administration in controlling the virus has not been successful,” he said, referring to the government of President Hassan Rouhani.
“None of the nurses have access to proper protective gears,” Farahani said, adding that some health care specialists had left the city. “So far, I have seen any particular action to confront corona by the administration.”
The new coronavirus originated in China sometime around December. There are concerns that clusters in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread.
Authorities in Iran have closed schools across much of the country for a second day and as neighboring countries reported infections from travelers from Iran, prompting several to shut their borders to Iranian citizens.
The number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country as compared to the ratios in China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.
Iranian health officials have not whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus. Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.
Kuwait announced on Monday its first cases of the virus, saying that three travelers returning from the northeastern city of Mashhad, Iran were confirmed infected with the coronavirus. READ MORE
