Iran’s Armed Forces to Ramp up Efforts against COVID-19

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri announced that security forces will increase their contribution to the national campaign against the spread of the novel coronavirus, with enforcing travel limitations and screening for virus-hit suspects.

News ID: 449609

Date: 15 March 2020 - 08:37

RNA - "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," said Baqeri on Friday.

"Our law enforcement and security committees along with the Interior Ministry and provincial governors will be clearing shops, streets and roads in a national decision. This work will be organized within the next 24 hours," he added.

He noted that the suspected cases would be then transferred to medical centers and said the Iranian Armed Forces would establish up to 1,000 treatment units to provide clinical examinations for coronavirus patients and would do their utmost to treat them.

The top commander called on the Iranian people to pay heed to all recommendations and requests by the Health Ministry to help defeat the virus as soon as possible, otherwise, he said, the containment would take more time.

The Novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a new respiratory disease first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. The World Health Organization on Wednesday described the outbreak as a pandemic.

In an edict to Major General Baqeri on Thursday, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei emphasized the need for the establishment of a “health and treatment base” to prevent further spread of the ongoing 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.

“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,” Ayatollah Khamenei added.

According to Fars News Agency, Iranian Health Ministry Spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour announced on Friday that the new coronavirus outbreak in the country has claimed 514 lives out of 11,364 confirmed cases of infections so far, adding that 3,529 coronavirus patients have recovered.

"Sadly, 85 people infected with the COVID-19 disease have died in the past 24 hours," Jahanpour said in a televised news conference.

Spokesman of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said on Wednesday that the IRGC has mobilized 100,000 of its members as well as Basij (volunteer) forces to help the government and people in the fight against coronavirus epidemic.

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