Iranian VP Declares Gov’t’s Supportive Measures for People, Businesses during Coronavirus Epidemic

Paying $47-$142 monthly financial assistance to 3mln Iranians with stable income and $238-$576 loans to 4mln people who have received financial losses due to the epidemic, including workers and businesses are among those covered by the government’s plan, Nobakht said.

He added that the government has also delivered over $380mln to the national coronavirus campaign headquarters as well as medical sciences universities across the country to reinvigorate the health, hygiene and treatment system.

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced earlier this week that it would be extending the grace period for the repayment of loans for 3 months to the businesses affected by the coronavirus epidemic.

The businesses included in the CBI’s plan are centers which produce, serve and distribute foodstuff, tourism-related centers, public transportation system, clothing-production units, confectionaries, cafes and sports and entertainment centers.

Meantime, all interest-free loans will be granted a 3-month-long grace period to repay.

Also, Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian has ordered the water and power distribution companies to give a 3-month-long time to their customers to pay their charges.

Meantime, many private owners of different shops, malls and trade towers across Iran have forbore from taking rent payments from their tenants for the last month of the current Iranian year (to end on March 19) due to the impacts of coronavirus epidemic on their businesses.

Iranian Health Ministry Spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour announced on Saturday that the new coronavirus outbreak in the country has claimed 611 lives out of 12,729 confirmed cases of infection so far, adding that 4,339 coronavirus patients have recovered. 

Novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a new respiratory disease first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. The World Health Organization on Wednesday described the outbreak as a pandemic.

According to the latest reports, the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has infected over 145,000 people in the world, claiming more than 5,400 lives.

On Wednesday, the Iranian foreign ministry declared that despite Washington’s claims of cooperation to transfer drugs to Iran via the new Swiss-launched payment mechanism, the US is troubling the process amid the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

Although US claims that medicines and medical equipment are not under sanctions, they have practically blocked the transfer of Iran’s financial resources in other countries into the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said.

As the death toll from the virus surges, Iran intensifies its preventive safety measures. Closures of schools and universities have been extended for the next two weeks.

The government also imposed travel restrictions, specially on Iran’s north, which is among the red zones. The country has also adopted strict digital health control procedures at airports to spot possible infections.

Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced earlier this month that a new national mobilization plan would be implemented across the country to fight against the coronavirus epidemic and more effectively treat patients.

Namaki said that the plan will include all the 17,000 health centers and the 9,000 medical and clinical centers in all cities, suburban areas and villages.

He added that the plan will include home quarantine, noting that infected people will receive the necessary medicines and advice, but they are asked to stay at home.

Namaki said that people with a more serious condition will stay at the hospitals, adding that the public places will be disinfected, the entries of infected towns and cities will be controlled to diagnose and quarantine the infected cases.

He added that the necessary equipment and facilities have been provided, expressing the hope that the epidemic would be curbed.

Namaki said that the number of medical laboratories to test coronavirus infection has reached 22, and will increase to 40 soon.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says Iran's response to the virus has so far been up to the mark. Still, it says the US sanctions are a big challenge, and Washington would be complicit in the rising death toll in Iran if it would not remove its sanctions.

The World Health Organization has considered priorities in combating coronavirus and Islamic Republic of Iran obeys and follows up priorities as defined by WHO.

The WHO is dispatching separate delegations to all countries.