Officials in the central Iranian city of Yazd are building a special-purpose biological hospital to deal with the Wuhan coronavirus, the Tasmin News Agency has reported.
According to Mahmoud Dehghan, the region’s deputy minister of infrastructure and transport, construction work on the hospital began Sunday, with the facility expected to be completed later this week if all goes to plan. After that, medical equipment will be delivered and the hospital can begin its operations.
Tasnim says the hospital will cover an area of 1,000 square meters, and feature an emergency ward, a rest area for staff, and a warehouse for biohazardous materials.
The ambitious project brings to mind efforts by China to build two hospitals in just over a week’s time in Wuhan earlier this year.
Iran has one of the highest confirmed rates of new coronavirus in the world, ranking fourth behind China, South Korea and Italy. The country moved to close some schools, with parliament shutting down Friday amid fears of infection.
Earlier, Iranian Vice President for Women’s and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar and senior lawmaker Mojtaba Zonnour confirmed that they had contracted the virus. On Monday, media reported that Seyed Mir-Mohammadi, a member of the advisory body to the Supreme Leader, died of complications from COVID-19.
Over 89,000 cases of new coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, over 80,000 of them in mainland China. Over 3,000 people have died, 2,800 of them in China. Over 45,000 more have made a complete recovery.
