Chinese nationals banned from Iran amid coronavirus outbreak

Iranian authorities have decided to impose an outright ban on arrivals of all Chinese nationals into the country amid a sudden surge in coronavirus cases that has led to more than two dozen deaths.

The official IRNA news agency said in a Thursday report that arrival restrictions would apply to all Chinese nationals seeking to enter Iran.

The report said the decision had been adopted by Iran’s Immigration and Passport Police and would be enforced in all airports and points of entry, including the Imam Khomeini airport located outside the capital Tehran.

The ban comes despite recent statistics showing the China has managed to weather a peak of coronavirus outbreak in the country more than a month after it began in the central city of Wuhan.

The number of new cases reported in mainland China on Thursday was for a first time lower than the rest of the world.

More than 2,700 people have died in China as a result of the infection, most of them in the central Hubei province.

Iran stopped passenger flights to China in early February in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus. However, authorities said last week when a first case was reported in the central city of Qom that people routinely travelling to China for businesses purposes had used indirect flights during the outbreak.

Iranian health ministry said on Thursday that the number of coronavirus cases confirmed in the country had reached 245, adding that a total of 26 people had died.

That comes as the number of new cases announced by the ministry jumped in the 24 hours leading to Thursday with 106 new infections and seven deaths.