Iran's hospitals are facing severe shortages of medical personnel and beds amid a significant rise in the COVID-19 cases, a senior official of Tehran's anti-coronavirus task force said on Thursday.
Iran began relaxing its lockdown in mid-April, however, a second wave of infections emerged in early June and has proven much more serious than the first one, said Reza Jalili-Khoshnood, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
He said at one hospital - Tehran's Shohada, where he is hospitalized for being infected with the virus - 172 medical staff have been infected themselves or are caring for infected family members.
Jalili-Khoshnood said there were also shortages of beds including of intensive care beds.
His comments come in contrast with President Hassan Rouhani's assurances that the country has sufficient supplies of medical personnel and facilities, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state television that the total number of diagnosed cases in the country had reached 267,061, up by 2,500 in the last 24 hours.
Iran recorded 13,608 related deaths as of Thursday, including 198 in the previous 24 hours, according to Lari.
