Iran hits new Covid record, with over 500 deaths in a day
Tehran, Aug 8 (EFE).- Iran reported 542 coronavirus-linked deaths in the past 24 hours, the country’s highest single-day toll since the beginning of the pandemic last year, with almost 40,000 new infections.
Sima Sadat Lari, Iran’s health ministry spokesperson, said Sunday that the figures took the country’s total number of Covid-19 deaths to 94,015 and cases to 4,158,700.
Lari explained that the number of infections logged in the past 24 hours was also one of the highest figures of reported cases so far.
Iran is currently mired in its fifth wave of coronavirus infections due to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, which originated in India.
The country’s vaccination campaign got off to a slower start than the authorities had planned, with only 12.5 million people out of the total population of 80 million having received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
Iranian new President Ebrahim Raisi, who was sworn in on Thursday, said earlier he would adopt a new way of fighting the pandemic but gave no further details.
China’s Sinopharm, Russia’s Sputnik V and Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca are the main vaccines used in the rollout in Iran, which remains among the countries hardest-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in the world. EFE
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