TEHRAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th February, 2021) Iranian Health Minister Saeid Namaki sounded the alarm on Saturday over the progressive spread of the UK coronavirus variant, which the local authorities fear is more infectious than declared by UK experts.
"The [mutated] virus has spread throughout the entire country. We should be conscious that this virus can be in any city, village and family. This is among the gravest concerns of our COVID-19 management," Namaki said in a televised speech.
According to the Iranian minister, the mutated coronavirus' infectiousness is significantly higher than initially declared by UK health experts.
While Iran's first UK variant case had been found in a man who recently returned from the United Kingdom in January, Namaki said that the virus was now found in a woman with no travel history at all. In this regard, the minister said Iran should scale up its COVID-19 detection capacity.
In response to the emergence of mutated strains, the Iranian authorities introduced a 14-day quarantine for all European arrivals on January 30. The bilateral air traffic with the United Kingdom remains suspended.
