Tehran – The Iranian vice president for women and family affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, has come down with the new strain of coronavirus, local media reported.
“Ms. Ebtekar showed signs of infection with coronavirus and was tested. The results came back positive,” her adviser was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA on Thursday.
A Ministry of Health and Medical Education official said the country’s deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi had also tested positive for COVID-19.
Iran has 245 confirmed cases of infection with the COVID-19 disease, including 26 virus-associated deaths. The Islamic Republic’s deputy health minister tested positive for the virus earlier this week.
Kianush Jahanpur, head of Public Relations and Information Centre of Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said that Iran has increased the number of laboratories for testing the virus infection to seven. These will be increased to 22 in the following week, Xinhua reported.
Iran announced the first cases of viral infection in the central Qom city on February 18.
An earlier report said an Iranian lawmaker had tested positive for the deadly coronavirus. “I give this message (of being affected by the virus) while I am less hopeful about staying alive,” Xinhua quoted lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi as saying to local media on Wednesday.
Mohammad Reza Qadir, president of Qom Medical Sciences University, has also tested positive.
Sputnik and Xinhua