700 pregnant women and 240 midwives in Iran are infected with the Coronavirus.
In a press conference on Sunday, May 3, 2020, Shahla Khosravi, Deputy Health Minister at Midwifery Affairs, made a shocking announcement: “Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus in the country, about 500 pregnant women have been hospitalized and 200 pregnant women have been treated on an outpatient basis.”
“Thus far, 20 babies in Iran have been born with the Coronavirus” she added, without any further explanation.
Regarding the number of deaths among midwives, Ms. Khosravi said, “About 40 to 50 have been hospitalized. Unfortunately, three midwives died” (The official IRNA news agency – May 3, 2020).
The Deputy Health Minister at Midwifery Affairs noted that during the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, midwives volunteered to stay in hospital to take care of Coronavirus patients. Because the 12,000 midwives in Iran work as healthcare workers, they were at increased risk of getting infected.
During a video press conference on Sunday, Ms. Khosravi also added, “We currently have a shortage of midwives in the midwifery department. Of course, different levels of the Ministry of Health also face this shortage.”
According to Behrouz Bonyadi, a member of the regime’s parliament, a number of nurses and physicians have been infected with the virus because of regime’s failure to provide timely official notifications about the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.
According to some published reports, about 2,300 doctors and medical staff in Iran have contracted or died because of Covid-19.
Tehran, Gilan, and Mazandaran provinces are among those that have the highest number of patients and casualties among medical staff.
The first nurse whose death was reported by the state-run media was Narjes Khanalizadeh. The 25-year-old worked at Milad Hospital in Lahijan, in northern Iran.