Head of Iran’s Pasteur Institute said that the institute is equipped with the latest methods and devices for detecting coronavirus mutations.
Alireza Biglari said on Saturday “the tools that we dreamed of having since the disease outbreak now exist and we are forerunner of diagnosis due to our reliance on indigenous knowledge”.
Biglari made the remarks while describing the status quo of the COVID pandemic in Iran at a press conference on Saturday, according to Iran Press.
“We had a lot of challenges at the beginning of the pandemic in Iran, but the country’s strategy was to make the best use of the available tests, so we often provided the available test capacity to hospitals with patients entering hospitals with respiratory symptoms on priority.”
He highlighted that before detecting the first cases in the country, diagnostic procedures were set up in Iran, and three laboratories were able to diagnose the cases.
“In the early days of the pandemic, when the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that we use three genes to check for disease, we used one gene because we believed it was enough to identify and diagnose the disease. Iran endorsed this strategy for diagnosing the disease with a single gene and recommended it to other countries,” Biglari said.
He stressed that coronavirus diagnosis is now performed in 500 laboratories across the country while having the national laboratory network was a dream.
In recent days, Iran has been facing a rise in the number of COVID cases and deaths.
According to the Health Ministry, 191 people died from COVID-19 in 24 hours. The ministry put the total death toll at 134,798.
The ministry also reported 12,058 new positive cases, bringing the total number to 6,925,485.
It said that 4,011 patients are in intensive care units.
According to the latest analysis, 337 cities in the country are classified as red – the highest rating on its coronavirus risk scale.
So far, 62,037,154 people have received the first dose of the COVID vaccine, 55,042,390 have received the second dose, 22,068,114 have received the booster shot, and the total number of vaccines injected in the country reached 139,147,658 doses.