DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran shuts down a newspaper on Monday after quoting a former member of the national coronavirus task force and saying the country’s toll of the epidemic could be 20 times higher than official figures, state news agency IRNA reported.
PHILO PHOTO: A girl walks into a bazaar covering her face with a scarf, following the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19), in Tehran, Iran, July 8, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency) Abdollah Heidari fia REUTERS
“The newspaper Jahan-e Sanat was shut down today for publishing an interview on Sunday,” the paper’s editor-in-chief, Mohammadreza Saadi, told IRNA.
On Sunday, the newspaper published an interview with Mohammadreza Mahboubfar, in which he said: “The figures announced by the officials on cases and deaths of coronavirus constitute only 5% of the real toll possession of the country”.
Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari rejected Mahboubfar’s comments, saying he was not a member of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce, according to IRNA.
It was not clear if she meant he had never been a member of the body, so claimed by the newspaper.
Mahboubfar, an epidemiologist, told the newspaper that authorities discovered the coronavirus in January, while Iran announced its first infections and two deaths from the virus on February 19.
“There was no transparent flow of information … The government provided only technical figures … about concerns about (its impact) on the elections and the conditions of the anniversary of the revolution,” Mahboubfar told the daily.
Reuters reported in April that authorities were refraining from announcing the spread of the coronavirus in Iran out of concern that it would shock the public ahead of the February parliamentary elections and the celebrations of the 1979 Islamic Revolution anniversary.
Iran is one of the least affected countries by COVID-19 in the Middle East, with 18,616 deaths and 328,844 infected cases.
Some experts and legislators have questioned the accuracy of Iran’s official coronavirus official toll. A report by the Iranian parliament’s research center in April suggested that the toll of the coronavirus could be almost twice as high as that announced by the Ministry of Health.
It said Iran’s official figures on coronavirus were based solely on the number of deaths in hospitals and those who had already tested positive for the coronavirus.
Written by Parisa Hafezi; Edited by Angus MacSwan
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