Dubai airport has suspended all flights with Iran on Tuesday, with the exception of Tehran, the capital, due to Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, a spokesman announced. The Islamic Republic, which has become the main center of the outbreak in the Middle East, has recognized three new deaths and asked the population not to leave their homes to fight the epidemic. Bahrain, which has reported nine more cases in its territory, has interrupted flights with Dubai and banned its citizens from traveling to Iran. These measures show not only the isolation of Iran, but the effects of the coronavirus on the movement of people and goods in the region
Three more people have died in Iran because of the virus, reports the state IRNA news agency. The new deceased, two elderly women in the central province of Markazi and a third person in the northern Alborz, raise 15 fatalities in that country. According to the latest official figures until Monday, 12 people had died. The number of those affected rises to 95, the majority in the city of Qom. Some epidemiologists estimate that, according to the ratio seen in China, those affected would be many more.
For now, the Ministry of Health has asked the Iranians not to leave their homes to avoid contagion. Vice Minister himself, Iraj Harirchi, has tested positive for coronavirus and will have to remain in isolation, as he himself told in a video. There is also a deputy and another senior official affected. Iran has not said how many people are in quarantine, but according to the Mehr (semi-official) 320 news agency they have been hospitalized.
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Since Tehran admitted the first two fatalities last Wednesday, the alarm has spread in neighboring countries, which have proceeded to suspend flights and restrict traffic at their borders. Political, commercial and, above all, religious ties have made Iran the second focus of dissemination of Covid-19 after China. All cases detected so far in Iraq (5), Afghanistan (1), Kuwait (8), Bahrain (17), Oman (4) and Lebanon (1) have originated in the Islamic Republic, including an Iranian marriage diagnosed in United Arab Emirates, where the rest of the 13 cases detected are linked to China.
If the rich petromonarchies of the Gulf can cope with cases that have been leaked, countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria have no capacity to undertake an outbreak. Their health networks are very fragile, they lack infrastructure, personnel and even sufficient financial resources.
The Baghdad government has confirmed on Tuesday four cases in the city of Kirkuk, 270 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital. The prime minister's office has instructed that the K-1 hospital in that city be considered an isolation center for those infected with the coronavirus.
“If the virus is in Qom, it is only a matter of time before it is spread to Najaf, an Iraqi academic warned as soon as he heard about the first Iranian victims. He was referring to the two Shiite theological centers, one in Iran and one in Iraq, that compete to attract students and pilgrims from around the world. Between both cities there is a constant flow of travelers arriving both by air and land.
Iraq, which shares a thousand kilometers of border with Iran, is currently in deep political crisis. It has a functioning Government, a designated Prime Minister who finds it difficult to form a new Cabinet, and a popular response that has denounced Tehran's political interference in his country's political system for five months.
Only on Saturday, three days after the Covid-19 outbreak was known in Iran, Baghdad closed the common border. Among the thousands of people who crossed in the meantime there may be numerous infected, depending on the time they would have spent in that country. In addition, although the Ministry of Transportation announced the suspension of Iraqi Airways flights since Thursday 20, the planes have continued to arrive at the Najaf airport. Only on Monday night, after the contagion of an Iranian student in that city was known, a spokesman said they would be interrupted as of Tuesday.
The first confirmed case in Afghanistan, a 35-year-old man from the western province of Herat who recently traveled to Qom, met Monday. The authorities, who have declared a state of emergency in Herat, had suspended air and land connections with Iran since Sunday. But it was too late.
Thousands of Afghans cross the Iranian border every week in search of work, business, study or pilgrimage to Shia holy places. In January alone, the 30,000 have been around, according to the International Migration Organization. And at least a thousand inhabitants of Herat have visited Qom in the last two weeks, according to the Minister of Health, Ferozuddin Feroz.
Afghanistan, destroyed by four decades of successive wars, lacks the minimum infrastructure to deal with such a contingency. Right now, its precarious stability is pending a peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban insurgents for the withdrawal of US troops and the start of inter-Afghan talks. Any health emergency will require strong support from international organizations.
The situation is equally serious in Syria, where the health system has been destroyed by nine years of war. Although no case has been reported in that Levantine country at the moment, the intense relations of the Bachar el Asad regime with Iran make it fear that it is only a matter of time. In addition to the military advisors and militia volunteers that Tehran provides to Damascus, many Iranians come to visit the Saida Zeinab shrine, just as Syrian Shiites visit Iranian holy places.
"I have also been infected"
"I have also been infected with the coronavirus," said Iranian Vice Minister of Health, Iraj Harirchi, on Tuesday in a video broadcast by Iranian media and widely disseminated on social networks. During his appearance before the press the day before Harirchi, who led the working group against Covid-19, coughed and wiped his sweat on several occasions. He is now isolated to pass quarantine, but he shows confidence that his colleagues will stop the outbreak and that he will soon recover to join them.
Harirchi is not the only politician affected by the disease. A well-known deputy for Tehran, reformer Mahmoud Sadeghi, has also tested positive. Sadeghi, who was disqualified for the elections last Friday, is less confident than the vice minister. "I don't have much hope to continue living in this world," he wrote on his Twitter account. He has also taken the opportunity to ask the judiciary to allow political prisoners to be with their families for the duration of the outbreak to avoid possible contagion in prisons.
According to Iranian media, the head of the Qom University of Medical Sciences, Mohamad Reza Ghadir, is also in quarantine. Ghadir, who was in charge of managing the outbreak in that city, said Monday night that the Ministry of Health had ordered municipal officials to "publish no statistics" regarding the coronavirus. He also expressed concern about "the spread of those infected throughout the city."