Virus kills another top Iranian official, death toll reaches 124
Iran confirms 1,234 new cases over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 4,747; Saudi reopens Makkah, Madina holy sites; Egypt detects 12 new coronavirus cases
Iran on Friday announced a surge in coronavirus cases and 17 more deaths including an adviser to the foreign minister, raising the total number of people killed to 124.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia reopened two of the most holy religious sites in Islam, Al Haram Mosque in Makkah and Al Masjid Al Nabawi in Madina, after they were closed for sterilisation to halt the spread of the new coronavirus, state TV Al-ekhbariya reported on Friday.
Saudi Arabia on Friday called on citizens to declare visits to Iran in the past 14 days, as part of measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, according to a statement by the kingdom’s civil aviation authority.
“If you were in Iran in the past 14 days, take the initiative and declare it; protect your health and the health of your family,” said the Saudi civil aviation authority tweet.
Iran is battling the world’s deadliest outbreak of the disease outside China where it originated.
Iran has confirmed 1,234 new cases over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 4,747, health ministry spokesman
Kianoush Jahanpour told a news conference.
The new cases “are probably those who had been infected with the virus two weeks ago and... just came to us with symptoms,” he added.
Several politicians or government officials are among those who have been killed by the disease in Iran.
Hossein Sheikholeslam, an adviser to Iran’s foreign minister who took part in the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis, died from the virus late on Thursday, state news agency IRNA reported.
Iran has tested more than 15,980 people for novel coronavirus since it emerged in the country, Jahanpour said.
“The number of those who have recovered from the disease has reached more than 913,” he added.
Iran has been scrambling to contain the rapid spread of coronavirus which has infected people in all 31 of its provinces.
Jahanpour said Tehran has 1,413 confirmed cases so far, which is the highest among all provinces and makes it an “epicentre” for the virus. He bemoaned the “heavy traffic in the north of the country” as Iranians flock to popular tourist spots “despite numerous warnings and all the threats this poses.”
“Please, do not travel to northern provinces , by doing this you are gifting the virus to your family and friends,” Jahanpour said.
The country has closed schools and universities until early April in a bid to contain the virus, but according to the official, the long holidays ahead appear to have prompted people to travel north.
Iran has not officially quarantined any province, but it has tried to limit domestic movement and set up checkpoints across the country.
It stepped up restrictions on Friday as the police announced all people travelling to Mazandaran and Gilan — other than residents of those provinces returning from elsewhere — will be turned back.
Gilan is one of the country’s worst-hit provinces.
Six of those who died from the virus are politicians or government officials. Before his death, Sheikholeslam was adviser to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Other officials who have died of coronavirus include lawmaker Mohammad Ali Ramezani and Mojtaba Pourkhanali, an agriculture ministry official, both from Gilan.
The others were Ahmad Toyserkani, an adviser to the judiciary chief, Hadi Khosroshahi, a former envoy to the Vatican, and Mojtaba Fazeli, a secretary to a senior cleric.
Tehran lawmaker Fatemeh Rahbar is in a coma after being infected, according to the ISNA news agency.
Egypt detected 12 new cases on Friday of the novel coronavirus among workers aboard a Nile cruise boat heading from Aswan to Luxor, a healthy ministry statement said.
“Twelve new cases tested positive for the coronavirus among Egyptian staff on the cruise boat without showing any symptoms,” the joint statement with the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.