WHO Medical Donation to Help Combat Covid-19

The World Health Organization delivered $5.5 million worth of medical ventilators and PCR thermal cyclers to Iran to assist the country in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
The donations will boost Iran’s daily capacity of coronavirus tests and increase the number of medical ventilators available to severely-ill patients, ISNA reported.
The supplies include 150 medical ventilators worth $2.8 million, funded by donations from Germany and other international partners as well as 100 thermal cyclers bought with donations made mostly by Japan and Kuwait, estimated at $2.7 million. 
Christoph Hamelmann, WHO’s representative in Iran, underlined the significance of thermal cyclers, essential equipment that run PCR tests, in the fight against the contagion, stressing that, “increasing Iran’s testing capacity is vital for the early detection and isolation of Covid-19 patients and contact tracing”.
According to Hamelmann, the medical ventilators will increase the chances of improvement in critically-ill patients hospitalized in intensive care units.
The timely donations arrived in Iran as a member of Tehran’s coronavirus taskforce, Nader Tavakoli, said almost all ICU beds have been filled and elective surgeries have been postponed to make room for the new wave of Covid-19 patients.
Following six straight days of over 4,000 daily coronavirus infections, Sunday’s reported cases fell to 3,890, pushing the total tally to 530,380, the Health Ministry’s Spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said, adding that nearly 40% of the new patients required hospital care.
Lari also reported the death of 252 on Sunday, making it the eighth consecutive day of over 250 overnight fatalities. 
“The total number of deaths reached 30,375. Over the past week, the number of red counties rose from 187 to 215,” she said.
“Some 4,740 patients are in critical condition and 427,000 have recovered from the respiratory illness.”
Iran has administered 4.5 million diagnostic tests to detect the infection in the past eight months. 
Over 40 million people worldwide have contacted Covid-19 and 1.15 million have died, with the US reporting the highest pandemic death toll on Oct. 17: 218,575.