1 person dies of coronavirus every 10 minutes in Iran, says official

Body temperature of visitors are checked after the Iranian Government decided to re-open shrines and holy places in Tehran, Iran on 26 May 2020 [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]

One person dies every ten minutes in Iran as a result of the coronavirus, a presidential adviser said on Sunday, warning that the Islamic Republic may be left unable to curb the spread of the disease if this continues.

Hesameddin Ashena said the country may suffer an “inability to curb the coronavirus if the virus keeps spreading across Iran.”

“Every 10 minutes one person dies from the coronavirus in Iran,” Ashena wrote on Twitter, explaining that his country is in an “abnormal situation”.

The Iranian health authorities said on Sunday that the daily death toll from the virus had reached 163 – the highest since March.

As of Sunday, a total of 240,438 people have been found to have contracted the virus in the Islamic Republic, 11,571 of whom have died, and 201,330 have recovered, according to official data.

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