Raeisi Demands Urgent Plan to Curb Covid-19 Surge

EghtesadOnline: Newly inaugurated President Ebrahim Raeisi said on Saturday that the relevant officials have one week to finalize and present a comprehensive plan to revamp the country’s Covid-19 response.

News ID: ۷۸۶۸۱۱

08 August 2021

Pointing to the National Coronavirus Headquarters’ passive approach to the pandemic, Raeisi urged the taskforce to take on a more active role in containing the disease, IRNA reported.

“It is necessary to formulate a plan that mobilizes volunteer forces and public institutions,” the top official said.

The president called on medical universities across Iran and provincial authorities to share their one and a half year of experience in fighting the spread of the coronavirus.

Raeisi’s team began to develop an enhanced plan to tackle the deadly virus right after election results were announced in late June.

The proposal, currently being drafted by a special committee, will be unveiled and finalized in an NCH meeting next week.

According to Raeisi, the new plan would make changes to health protocols, medical services provided by hospitals, the vaccination campaign as well as the production and procurement of Covid-19 vaccines.

On his policy toward vaccine, he said, “While I support domestic vaccine production, I will take every measure necessary to import vaccines.”

Iran has been attempting to curb the fifth wave of the infectious disease for the past month. The wave, triggered by the highly transmissible Delta variant, has caused a surge in patients and fatalities and overwhelmed hospitals across the country.

The dangerous mutation has placed 336 cities throughout the country on red alert.

Upward Trend

Coronavirus hospitalizations are still on the rise and the number of daily cases have surpassed those during the peak of the fourth wave, the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, said.

“We’re still seeing a surge in Covid-19 hospitalizations,” Lari noted. “We admitted 26,851 patients to hospitals last week.”

The health official added that they had identified 205,000 outpatients with positive test results over the past week.

“Provinces Mazandaran, Ilam, Golestan, Gilan and Bushehr registered the most hospitalized patients with positive test results last week,” she said, adding that the lowest tally belonged to the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

The Health Ministry on Saturday reported 26,400 new cases, taking the national tally to 4.119 million. The ministry also logged 387 deaths in a single day, bringing the total toll to 93,470.

So far, 12.1 million Iranians have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and a little over three million people have been fully vaccinated. Iran has imported some 19 million jabs and administered a total of 15.1 million shots.

The country is planning to vaccinate its population of 85 million people by March 2022 using a combination foreign and homegrown vaccines.

Worldwide Covid-19 cases jumped to 202.5 million on Saturday and fatalities from the respiratory illness reached 4.29 million.