In an online press conference from Cairo on Tuesday Dr. Richard Brennan, WHO's Regional Emergency Director, said WHO has seen a flattening off of the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Iran in recent days.
"Due to an impressive scaling up of many of the control measures, we have seen a flattening off of the number of cases in Iran and in fact, some suggestion, in recent days of perhaps a decline in the number of new cases,” Dr. Brennan was quoted by Daily News as saying.
Ir was not clear if Brennan was relying on official numbers being reported by Iran or WHO had any additional information.
Compiling an accurate count of new infections remains a "challenge" for all countries, Dr. Brennan said and pointed out that there is still an opportunity to rapidly scale up control measures for early detection, testing, isolation of confirmed cases and rapid treatment in the region.
Iran's official death toll from coronavirus is now nearing 4,000 but in the past few days the country has reported relatively fewer deaths. According to the same data more than 62,000 COVID-19 patients have now been identified in the country.
Iran's Ministry of Health says that it only provides figures based on the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19, after three tests at various intervals.
Radio Farda's ongoing tracking of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) death toll in Iran has revealed that at least 3,100 more deaths have occurred as of April 6, bringing the total to 6,872 in comparison with the officially announced 3,739 for the same day. The same investigation put the number of infected individuals at 94,956.
On March 16 Dr. Brennan who had returned from a visit to Iran had said that Iran was underreporting its coronavirus death toll but attributed it to testing being restricted to sever cases and had pointed out that the toll could potentially be five times higher than the official figures.
