Roughly 10% of the members on Iran’s parliament have contracted the coronavirus.
Iranian state media reported on Tuesday that 23 lawmakers have tested positive for the mysterious illness, according to USA Today. The head of Iran’s emergency services has also been infected, as has the country’s health minister and a vice president who was the spokeswoman of the 1979 hostage crisis.
The virus has killed a close adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s former ambassador to the Vatican, and a member of parliament. Many of Iran’s top officials contracted the illness while foreign governments accused the Iranian regime of hiding the real effect of the coronavirus in the nation.
Iran has reported that 77 Iranian citizens have died from the coronavirus and that another 2,336 of its people are infected. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, accused Iran of downplaying the impact of the virus on the country.
The U.S. government suspects Iran “may have suppressed vital details about the outbreak,” Pompeo said on Feb. 25. “All nations, including Iran, should tell the truth about the coronavirus and cooperate with international aid organizations.”
British officials are trying to get approval from the Iranian regime to test a British citizen who was imprisoned by Iran in 2016 on charges of espionage. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has told her husband Richard Ratcliffe, who has spoken regularly with her since her imprisonment, that she suspects she has the virus, but Iranian prison officials will not perform any tests or issue treatment.
The prison “is obviously under orders not to test anyone,” Richard Ratcliffe told Good Morning Britain on Monday.
