Iran reports lowest daily deaths from coronavirus in more than 3 months

Iran reported 119 deaths from the new coronavirus on Sunday, the lowest daily fatalities in more than three months, the health ministry said according to a report by Reuters.

Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that 5,502 people had been infected in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the Middle East’s worst-affected country to 1,200,465.

Sunday’s death toll was the lowest since September 12 when it registered 116 deaths.

Iran extended a night-time traffic curfew to 330 lower-risk cities and towns on Sunday in an effort to sustain the recent decline in the number of infections and deaths.

The curfew running from 9 pm to 4 am – already in place in 108 “orange” medium-risk, cities – is extended to lower-risk “yellow” areas.

The curfew, under which the use of private cars is banned, resulted in nearly 100,000 fines being issued in one night in the past week.

Read: Iran extends curfew to 330 cities to sustain coronavirus decline

Iran said on Thursday it had received approval from US authorities to buy coronavirus vaccines from the World Health Organisation-led COVAX alliance, a multi-agency group dedicated to assuring fair access to vaccines for low- and middle-income countries. It did not say which vaccines it was buying.

On Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani, in televised remarks, reiterated Iran’s complaint that US sanctions had made it difficult to make payments for vaccines. “We arranged money from a bank to buy vaccines from COVAX but they said you need (US) approval,” Rouhani said.

Food and medicine are exempt from sanctions that Washington reimposed on Tehran after President Donald Trump walked away from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But the US measures have deterred some foreign banks from processing financial transactions for Iran deals.