Prominent Iranian physician & member of the Health Ministry Minoo Mohraz has for her part defended the health ministry’s data but has also said the number of people infected has been underreported because sanctions had blocked access to diagnostic kits:
[THREAD] There is much talk about #coronavirus in #Iran & the government’s response.
In this must-read interview, Minoo Mohraz, who is a widely respected physician, clears up misconceptions about the outbreak in Iran & highlights impact of US sanctions:https://t.co/0Zf0oYUIpG pic.twitter.com/FckDCuH84j
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
2. Mohraz is not government ideologue, but one of #Iran’s leading medical experts & a member of the Health Ministry’s National Committee for Infectious Diseases.
In this interview, she underscores the impact of US sanctions on undermining #Iran’s ability to combat the disease.
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
3. Mohraz details #Iran’s response to #COVID19 & how sanctions impaired Iran’s inability to access diagnostic kits, leading to a delay in identifying the disease in Iran & countering its spread early on.
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
4. Mohraz says: “In this period we had a lack of corona diagnostic kits. If the sanctions didn’t exist, we would have had this equipment.”
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
5. Mohraz added: “The production company for the kits which is in a European country was so afraid of US sanctions that it wouldn’t sell the kits to #Iran. The WHO has recently begun sending these kits to Iran, allowing us to identify those infected in Iran.”
SIMPLY OUTRAGEOUS!
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
6. Mohraz further said: “We had no operational issues & the only issue was not having the diagnostic kits. If we could have identified it earlier, this situation would have been announced earlier to the people & we could have acted more quickly to prevent its spread.”
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
7. She went on: “Even now that same European company won’t sell us the kits that quickly diagnose the disease. The WHO has recently assembled these kits & sent them to #Iran. We need thousands of these kits to test everyone.”
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
8. Mohraz says that if the US sanctions weren’t in place, #Iran would have been able to identify earlier when #corona entered the country.
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
9. She importantly also says that the death rate from #corona in #Iran is also ~2% & that many have not been identified as infected because of lack of access to the diagnostic kits. She says the number of identified people infected will be increasing.
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
10. Mohraz ended the interview with: “As far as I know, the Health Ministry hasn’t hidden anything & has announced the realities. And in this situation it could not have acted any differently.”
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) February 28, 2020
