Tehran (AFP)

Iranian President Hassan Rohani said on Wednesday that his country was close to "mastering" the Covid-19 epidemic, the day more than 2,000 new cases were announced in 24 hours.

Iran is the most affected country in the Middle East with 126,949 cases of contamination and 7,183 deaths according to official figures.

"We have made progress in all aspects of the fight against this dangerous virus (...) and we are on the verge of controlling this disease," said Mr. Rohani during a cabinet meeting broadcast on television.

Iran could "even no longer have these problems" if health protocols "were better respected in certain provinces currently in an unfavorable situation," he said.

At least 24 of the country's 434 counties are still in the red, the highest level of risk according to the color code used by the authorities to classify the regions, said Deputy Minister of Health Aliréza Raïsi.

According to him, the task force dedicated to the new coronavirus estimated Tuesday that 218 counties presented a low level of risk but that this number could fall to 183. Most of the deaths recorded in Iran concerned people aged over 70 years .

For the third consecutive day, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health Kianouche Jahanpour announced 2,346 new cases identified in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 126,949.

According to him, more than 98,800 hospitalized people are cured and have been able to return home, while 2,673 are still in critical condition.

Jahanpour has announced 64 new deaths, bringing the total to 7,183 dead. No deaths were recorded in a third of the provinces, while eight reported only one.

The province of Khuzestan (southwest) is still one of the most affected but the rest of the country is experiencing "relative stability", he said.

The number of new cases has been increasing since May 2, when Iran announced it had bottomed out since March 10.

According to Ali Akbar Haghdoost, a head of the working group, this increase is due to an increasing number of tests carried out among "people not hospitalized". "(...) This in no way means that there are relatively more people infected."

Abroad but also inside the country, some officials and experts suspect the Iranian record to be largely underestimated.

© 2020 AFP