The world is facing a very serious problem at this crucial point in time. To bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic, the international community must take collective and decisive action.
If virus outbreaks remain in a country unchecked, the risk will always be real. Travel and air travel between cities and countries around the world could still grind to a halt for fear that the virus will spread.
The world is thus focused on the effectiveness of each country’s authorities in dealing with this formidable health threat. No system or state can claim that this is a purely internal matter of national sovereignty and whatnot.
Experience has taught us that many countries bear a heavy burden due to mystification, lack of communication and lack of transparency on the part of neighboring countries. This practice of hushing and hiding facts is no secret to anyone. But the most important thing, beyond accusations and counter-accusations, is to learn from the experience of the past short period. Being the victim of an epidemic can no longer be a national stigma, contrary to what some regimes and authorities believed at the outbreak of the crisis that hit the most developed countries, including the US.
Rather, what everyone must grasp now is that we have to act with great responsibility, vigilance and seriousness. This impending danger is no longer restricted to the media exploitation and politicization department. The reluctance of some countries to impose stronger measures will be detrimental to all mankind.
Millions of people around the world risk footing the bill for hesitation and miscalculation that confuses health and politics in a crisis that could spell an unprecedented threat to the health system.
According to a recent report by researchers at Imperial College in London, more than 30 million people worldwide could be saved from coronavirus if countries acted swiftly. Firm measures of social distancing must be taken, the report says. Acting early can reduce the number of deaths by up to 95%.
In the face of this threat, there is no room for hesitation on the part of authorities in some countries to pursue the necessary measures. They will in any case apply more severe measures if the fate of the political system is threatened, as is sometimes the case in Iran, where the poor living conditions of citizens have led to popular protests.
If nothing is done to combat the virus, the report predicts that the world will be faced with as many as 40 million deaths this year. Taking quicker and stronger action to prevent the infection from spreading to more people could save 38.7 million people. Mortality can be reduced by 95%.
The task is daunting indeed. There’s no room to muddy the waters here.
We can explain, albeit without understanding, the Iranian mullahs’ reluctance to accept the US Offer to help fight the spread of the coronavirus among the Iranian people, despite this refusal being a terrible mistake in the view of the thousands of victims who are seeking help from even the most ferocious enemies of their ruling regime.
What is astonishing, however, is that the mullahs’ regime canceled a mission it had itself requested for a team of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to deal with the outbreak of the coronavirus, even though Iran is one of the worst hit countries worldwide.
The outbreak has claimed the lives of more than two thousand people and infected nearly thirty thousand in the country. According to the Iranian media, MSF is supporting the Iranian people in coordination with three Iranian ministries: the Foreign, Interior and Health Ministries. MSF inaugurated a field hospital in Esfahan province in central Iran.
This is not the first time this international organisation has worked in the country. MSF has been present there for years and provides health support through programmes to help drug addicts (they have doubled in Iran in recent years to around three million people, about 3.5% of the population), refugees, displaced people and other vulnerable groups. Vulnerable groups face obstacles in seeking health care, especially cases of hepatitis and epidemic diseases, due to the weak capacity of the Iranian health system.
Besides, the organization provides health support to nearly two million Afghan refugees and Iranian citizens residing in Mashhad, near the Afghan border. Many medical teams have been deployed to work in different parts of Iran.
According to Iranian media reports, it was the Ministry of Intelligence that coordinated the mission of an MSF-affiliated medical team. However, these reports were pulled out shortly afterwards and the mission of the team from the notorious international NGO cancelled its disaster and epidemic response efforts. They were expelled from Iranian territory under pressure from the hard-line mullahs loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian newspapers reported.
In explanation, Iranian newspapers say that the expulsion took place on the heels of a speech by Khamenei. In his address, the leader had accused the US of manufacturing a coronavirus in a lab and targeting “the genes of Iranians.”
The editor-in-chief of the pro-Khamenei Kayhan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari, has voiced his refusal to allow MSF medical supplies into his country, claiming that France supports US projects against Iran.
Similarly, the deputy of the province of Esfahan, Hossein Ali Haji Delijani, said that MSF wanted to carry out research on the coronavirus without consulting specialists in his country, as well as to obtain results on the impact of the “suspicious” disease on the genes of the Iranian people.
Could there be any less respect and concern for human life than that? How can leaders representing a great people such as the Iranians reason like this? How can they deal with a crisis that claims lives of their own day and night with such naïve an approach to things?
Because of their plot mentality, the mullahs could squander the efforts of the entire world against this virus. The World Health Organization must address these practices that pose an immense threat to the entire world.
