Officials Confirm Two Cases of Coronavirus in Qom

Date: 19 February 2020 - 22:11

News ID: ۷۶۳۵۸

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iranian authorities confirmed on Wednesday two cases of the new coronavirus, the first in the country, the ISNA news agency reported.
The report did not elaborate on the nationality of the two people infected. ISNA quoted an official in the country’s health ministry, Kiyanoush Jahanpour, as saying that "since last two days, some suspected cases of the new coronavirus were found.”
Jahanpour did not say how many people were suspected of having the virus, which causes the illness that the World Health Organization recently named COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.
He said the two confirmed cases were detected in the central province of Qom.
Deputy Health Minister Qassem Janbabaei said complementary tests on the two patients were underway and final results would come after careful deliberations.
He said a hospital in Qom had been dedicated to receive people suspected of having contracted the virus. The official added that a second hospital in the city was on high alert to respond to any emergency that might arise.
Janbabaei said the two men, now isolated, were living in two separate neighborhoods of Qom, a city of close to one million people, adding that they had never been out of the province let alone to any foreign country.
"How they contracted coronavirus is not clear and the issue is being investigated,” said the official in an interview with the IRNA news agency.
Jahanpour said tests on the two men had been carried out by special teams sent from Tehran after reports emerged of a growing number of influenza cases in the city.
He said others suspected of having the disease had been identified to have the influenza type B.
The announcement of coronavirus cases come nearly a month after authorities evacuated dozens of Iranian students from the central Chinese city of Wuhan where the virus began reportedly in an illegal wildlife market.
The 57 students were released from 14 days of quarantine inside a hotel in southwest Tehran on Tuesday.
The new virus emerged in China in December. Since then, more than 70,000 people have been infected globally, with more than 2,000 deaths being reported, mostly in China.