Mohammad Haj Abolghasemi, an official of the Basij Resistance Force—a paramilitary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), died on Tuesday in a Tehran hospital from the coronavirus, The Levant reported. State media reported his demise without citing the cause of death, however several users online, including one user who said Abolghasemi was his sister’s brother-in-law, suggested he died due to coronavirus, The Levant reported.
On Wednesday, Asr-e Maa, published by the Organization of the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin (OIRM), reported that Iran’s Minister of Industry Reza Rahmani had been infected with the coronavirus and is in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Tehran.
IranWire reported on Wednesday that first vice president Eshaq Jahangiri has tested positive for the coronavirus and is undergoing treatment.
Iran is unique with the number of its high officials being infected, even compared to the epicenter of the outbreak, China.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that the death toll from the virus in his country had reached 92, and that the outbreak of the coronavirus had affected almost all of Iran’s provinces.
“This disease is a widespread disease,” Rouhani said in a statement published by the official president’s website. “It has reached almost all our provinces and in one sense it’s a global disease.”
A health ministry spokesman told a news conference in Tehran that the virus has killed 92 people out of 2,922 confirmed cases across Iran.
Rouhani rejected the offer made last week by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to help Iran with the outbreak. “They’ve appeared with a mask of sympathy that ‘we also want to help the people of Iran,'” Rouhani said. “If you are really telling the truth, then lift sanctions from medicine.”
Friday prayers in Iran have been canceled across all the provincial capitals for the second week in a row, according to state television.