Tehran
Iran’s deputy health minister and a member of parliament tested positive for the coronavirus as the death toll inside the country rose to 16 on Tuesday as Iranians worry that authorities could be underestimating the scale of outbreak.
Iran has the highest number of coronavirus deaths outside China, where the virus emerged in December and more than 2,600 have died.
“The coronavirus test for Mr Iraj Harirchi, the deputy health minister who was on the front lines combating the coronavirus, was positive,” Alireza Vahabzadeh, a media adviser to the health minister, said in a tweet.
Iraj Harirchi coughed occasionally and appeared to be sweating during a press conference on Monday with government spokesman Ali Rabiei. At the conference, Harirchi denied a lawmaker´s claim that 50 people have died from the virus in the shrine city of Qom, saying he would “resign” if the number proves true.
“My corona test is positive […] I don’t have a lot of hope of continuing life in this world,” Mahmoud Sadeghi, the parliamentarian from Tehran, wrote on Twitter. Also among the infected was the deputy health minister, who posted a video online announcing his infection which was shown on state media.
