Iran Battles Coronavirus — and the Black Market for Medical Supplies

Iranian authorities have seized millions of medical supplies being hoarded by black-market traders, an effort to alleviate their own shortfall as they battle to contain the world’s second-deadliest national coronavirus outbreak.
The death toll from the epidemic in Iran rose to 54 people Sunday, the health ministry said, up from 43 the previous day. The number of confirmed cases rose 65% from the day before to 978.
The country is suffering from a shortage of critical medical supplies, caused partly by an import ban on a variety of products aimed at boosting Iran’s domestic industry in the face of U.S. sanctions. The import ban on protective masks was lifted last week, and an import tariff of 55% was lowered to 5%.
As the epidemic has spread, traders and smugglers have stocked up on supplies in order to sell them at inflated prices, government officials say. Some consumers and health clinics have been forced to buy them from the black market.
In the past week, Iranian police have responded by confiscating more than 27 million hygienic items, including 6.7 million masks — about four days’ worth of domestic production — from hoarders, arresting at least 70 people. In the past 48 hours, they have confiscated more than 10 million gloves, 10 tons of disinfectant and 9,000 gallons of dialysis machine acid, said the police chief for economic crimes, Mohammadreza Moghimi.
Authorities have also temporarily closed down dozens of pharmacies for hoarding and overcharging for masks.
The push has implicated Iran’s biggest online retailer.
In a news broadcast, state television reporters followed agents from the country’s judiciary into a warehouse belonging to Digikala, where they found a stock of what the company said was 34,000 protective masks, despite not having a license to sell them. Digikala in a statement denied breaking any regulations.
Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani said once the coronavirus took hold in China, he ordered the customs bureau to ban exports of masks and assigned colleagues to stock up on them in case they were needed for an outbreak in Iran.
“Unfortunately, a small amount was purchased and the rest of the products went to the black market,” Mr. Namaki wrote in the letter published Saturday by the semiofficial Mehr news agency.
Faced with a public-health crisis, Iranian authorities have ordered hospitals to focus on coronavirus patients and other emergency cases. They have canceled public events such as Friday prayers.
“If people follow the instructions, avoid hanging out and socializing, traffic and stop traveling, we will see the outcome in the next three, five days or next week,” health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said on state television.
Experts have questioned the official Iranian statistics and suggested that the actual number of cases may be in the tens of thousands, based on the number of deaths and cases abroad originating from Iran.
Experts say the official number might reflect insufficient surveillance and a lack of ability to detect the virus. Some Iranians have said they are reluctant to get tested out of fear of contracting the virus in hospitals. Iranian authorities have denied misleading the public about the epidemic.
The sharp increase in cases on Sunday shows the results of stepped-up surveillance and more willingness among Iranians to be tested, the health ministry said.
The coronavirus has spread from Iran, primarily via travelers who visited the holy pilgrimage city of Qom, to at least 12 other countries, including Armenia, which on Sunday reported its first case.
Mr. Rouhani in a phone call Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “We are moving toward complete control of the situation.”
But the head of Tehran’s coronavirus management operations, Alireza Zali, said, “We will definitely be dealing with this virus for a considerable period.”
Iran’s deputy health minister for treatment, Qassem Janbabaei, said that in the best-case scenario, Iran would be dealing with the virus until the Iranian New Year on March 19, but possibly until late June, according to the Young Journalists Club state news agency.

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