Iran’s vice president contracts Coronavirus, WHO warns no country will be spared

Masoumeh Ebtekar, Iran vice-president for women and affairs, has contracted coronavirus.

This happened as the World Health Organisation on Thursday warned that countries need to prepare to combat the coronavirus, and authorities race to contain the epidemic’s rapid global spread.

Ebtekar contracted the disease two days after Iraj Harirchi, the country’s deputy health minister, tested positive to it.

Ebtekar is also known as the English-language spokeswoman “Mary” for the 1979 hostage-takers who seized the US embassy in Tehran and sparked a 444-day diplomatic crisis.

Iran has 245 confirmed coronavirus cases and has recorded 26 deaths, making it the country with the fourth-highest number of cases in the world and highest number of COVID-19 deaths outside China.

To curtail the spread of the virus, Iran has cancelled Friday prayers while officials urged residents to avoid travel within the country.

It also banned Chinese citizens from entering the country.

With new infections reported around the world now surpassing those in mainland China, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said even rich nations should prepare.

“No country should assume it won’t get cases, that would be a fatal mistake, quite literally,” Tedros said, pointing to Italy, where 17 people have died in Europe’s worst outbreak.

In addition to stockpiling medical supplies, governments ordered schools shut and canceled big gatherings, including sports events, to try to halt spread of the flu-like disease known as COVID-19 that emerged in central China more than two months ago from an illegal wildlife market.

The virus has so far mainly battered China, causing nearly 80,000 infections and more than 2,700 deaths, according to WHO figures. It has spread to another 46 countries, where around 3,700 cases and 57 deaths have been reported.

“This virus has pandemic potential,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva. He said Iran, Italy and South Korea were at a “decisive point,” but still short of sustained community transmission.

With agency reports