President Rouhani praises Iran Armed Forces for contributions to coronavirus fight

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has praised the efforts of the Armed Forces to contribute to the country’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Presidential Information Center said on Wednesday that Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri had presented a report to the president on the measures of the Imam Reza health and treatment base in the fight against COVID-19 disease.

In response to the report, Rouhani wrote, "We thank all the Armed Forces for their actions in this critical situation."

Since emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, the new coronavirus, which can cause potentially fatal respiratory malfunction, has claimed more than 44,000 lives worldwide.

In Iran, the flu-like virus has so far infected 47,593 people and killed 3,036 others, with 2,988 cases and 138 more deaths recorded over the past 24 hours, according to the latest updates released by the Iranian Health Ministry. 

Some 15,473 patients have also recovered from the virus.

Iran has taken numerous steps to stem the spread of the disease, including shutting down schools and universities and canceling cultural and religious gatherings. It has been also constantly disinfecting and sanitizing public places.

The Imam Reza base was launched after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on March 12 issued an edict to General Baqeri, emphasizing the need for the establishment of a “health and treatment base” to prevent further spread of the ongoing coronavirus epidemic in the country.

“While commending the services that the Armed Forces have so far provided to the dear people [of Iran], and while emphasizing the need for those services to further expand and continue, it is necessary that these services be organized in the form of a health and treatment base,” the Leader wrote in his edict.

Ayatollah Khamenei added, “In addition to establishing such treatment facilities as field hospitals and infirmaries, and so forth, you must focus on prevention of further spread of this disease through necessary means as well.”

Three days after the Leader’s edict, the Iranian Army started drills to prevent and monitor the outbreak of the new coronavirus.

Last month, Iran’s security forces also began to clear shops, streets and roads nationwide as part of measures to contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, said General Baqeri.

"Over the next one week to 10 days, the entire Iranian nation will be monitored once through cyberspace, by phone and, if necessary, in person, and those suspected of the disease will be identified," he said on March 13.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps also opened two field hospitals in the southern Iranian provinces of Bushehr and Hormozgan, IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said on March 14.  

He added that another mobile hospital had opened in the northern city of Rasht in Gilan Province to provide more services to confirmed coronavirus patients

'Iran ready to export COVID-19 test kits to other countries’

Meanwhile, Director of Pasteur Institute of Iran Alireza Biglari said in a video press conference on Wednesday that the country was able to export its COVID-19 test kits to regional countries.

“With the production and approval of diagnostic kits inside [the country], it is now possible to test suspicious people with mild symptoms, and not only have we become self-sufficient in the production of kits, but we have even been able to export kits to regional countries in need [of the equipment.]”

He said that the kits which are now used in Iran are molecular and have been verified by the World Health Organization, adding that if sampling is done correctly, up to 90 percent of the kit’s tests will be reliable.

Biglari went on to say that five knowledge-based Iranian companies have been producing molecular kits domestically, with one of them announcing that it will produce 80,000 kits per week.