Iran

29 Mar 2020; MEMO: Ehsan Hadadi, Iran’s first Olympic track and field medallist, has tested positive for coronavirus, Reuters reported on Saturday.

Hadadi, the Asian discus champion who became a national hero when he won silver at the 2012 Olympics in London, has an athletics base in the US but was at home in Tehran when he contracted the virus.

28 Mar 2020; MEMO: The minister of defence and support of the Iranian Armed Forces, Brigadier Amir Hatami, announced in a statement that major defence gear will be unveiled this year, noting that the Iranian naval force will receive a DANA destroyer and a minesweeper ship, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

28 Mar 2020; MEMO: An Iranian official announced on Friday that some of Tehran’s frozen funds abroad under US sanctions have been released as part of measures to help Iranian authorities combat the spread of COVID-19.

TEHRAN, March 27 (Xinhua) -- At least 80 inmates escaped from a prison in Saqqez city in Iran's western province of Kurdistan on Friday, semi-official Fars news agency reported.

The riot erupted amid the concerns about the raging novel coronavirus pandemic in the country, the report said.

On March 19, at least 20 inmates escaped from a prison in the city of Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan province.

Iran's judiciary has already freed 85,000 prisoners amid the concerns about the spread of COVID-19, a highly infectious disease.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Standing over the still body of an intubated 5-year-old boy wearing nothing but a plastic diaper, an Iranian health care worker in a hazmat suit and mask begged the public for just one thing: Stop drinking industrial alcohol over fears about the new coronavirus.

The boy, now blind after his parents gave him toxic methanol in the mistaken belief it protects against the virus, is just one of hundreds of victims of an epidemic inside the pandemic now gripping Iran.

TEHRAN, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Iran welcomes any initiative that could stop the war in Yemen and remove blockade on the impoverished country, Iran's Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

"Yemen has faced the biggest humanitarian crisis as a result of a destructive war," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.

For five years, the war and "the aggressors' simultaneous aerial, naval, and land blockade" on Yemen have blocked humanitarian assistance to the people on the Arab state, said Mousavi.

25 Mar 2020; MEMO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday that the number of deaths and cases who tested positive for coronavirus in the country are declining, Quds Press reported.

His remarks came during a meeting with the National Committee Against Coronavirus held in Tehran.

Rouhani said that the number of patients admitted to hospital for coronavirus are declining and that “this is happy news.”

CAIRO, Mar 25 (NNN-MENA) – Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 approached 2,000, after 122 new deaths were reported on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia reported the first death from the virus.

The death toll in Iran surged to 1,934, while the total number of infections rose to 24,811, after 1,762 new cases were reported. Of all the reported cases, 8,913 have recovered.

TEHRAN, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran's health ministry said on Tuesday that one Iranian is killed by the novel coronavirus in every 12 minutes, official IRNA news agency reported.

Over the past days, the COVID-19 infection has seen an upward trend in the capital Tehran and some other Iranian provinces, according to Kianush Jahanpur, head of Public Relations and Information Center of Ministry of Health and Medical Education.

CAIRO, Mar 24 (NNN-MEHR) – Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 climbed to 1,812 on Monday, after 127 new deaths were reported. Meanwhile, more countries in the Middle East decided to impose curfew, to curb the spread of the virus.

The total number of COVID-19 infections in Iran, the worst-hit country in the region, climbed to 23,049, up by 1,411 from a day ago. A total of 8,376 of the infected have recovered.