Fearing unrest, Iranian regime hiding deadly swine flu outbreak

The swine flu presently sweeping across Iran is a full fledged outbreak. It has already spread to many provinces in the country, including highly populated areas such as the capital city, Tehran. Yet despite its increasing severity, the Iranian regime has yet to take any credible step to fight the outbreak.

Fearing social unrest, the regime is publishing contradictory figures and false reports on the number of those afflicted, including a mounting death toll.

While, the regime’s leaders claim that just a few have been affected and that the disease is under control, the regime’s Ministry of Health is sending a contradictory message. The Ministry of Health alleges that following the outbreak in Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces, the deadly disease will spread to Kurdistan, Lorestan, Khuzestan, Chaharmahal Bakhtiari, Esfahan, Tehran, Semnan and Northern Khorassan provinces in the coming weeks.

A member of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) from Kerman province, stated on December 8 that “over 30 people have lost their lives in Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces like the falling leaves in autumn.”

Another MP from the same province said a day later that 750 people afflicted with swine flu have been hospitalized in Kerman’s hospitals.

The regime’s Ministry of Health announced after two weeks that the number of people who have died of the flu is 33.

There are also reports that several people lost their lives to swine flu in the city of Mehran in Ilam border province, but regime’s officials deny the existence and outbreak of the disease in Ilam and cities in border region.

Hashemi, Rouhani’s Minister of Health, reacted to the crisis with callous and unnerving indifference.. He even stated, “Always the virus that causes flu is dangerous to some… there is no need for vaccination in this season” (Iranian regime state TV – December 8).

State-run Mehr News Agency said in a report on December 2, that the drugs needed for this lethal disease are not available in pharmacies and hospitals.

Other officials with the Health Ministry acknowledged that many hospitals in Ilam and Kermanshah lacked beds with the special isolated respiratory equipment that is needed to treat patients suffering from swine flu.

Children under 5, pregnant women, the elderly, as well as patients suffering from diabetics, heart disorders, and kidney and liver diseases are more vulnerable to this virus. The regime’s inaction to prevent the outbreak of this disease puts the lives of these people at greater risk.

In recent years, France and other European governments, as well as many additional countries, have implemented widespread vaccination to inhibit the spread of this disease.

While Iranian regime is spending huge portion of the country’s budget for nuclear activities, the export of fundamentalism, internal suppression and dispatching terrorists to Syria, Yemen and other countries in the region, no special budget has allocated for confronting the outbreak of swine flu in the country.

The budget allocated to health and medical treatment or fundamental investments in public health in Iran ranks amongst the worst in the world while the figures of victims of diseases ranks among the highest globally.