Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced on Friday the U.S. continued sanctions against Iran amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even amid COVID-19, the U.S. continues to exert Trump’s failed ‘maximum pressure’ on Iranians. Isn’t it time to try something that may actually work?” Zarif wrote on social media as quoted by official news agency IRNA.
The Iranian diplomat posted the image of a 6-year-old Iranian girl who was affected by the U.S. sanctions, as well as a complaint made by her.
The girl, called Yasna, said she had a seizure at the age of 6 months, and her parents could not obtain the only medicine effective for her treatment after “ignorant American politicians made a wrong and inhuman decision overnight.”
According to the letter, Yasna’s illness then worsened and led to many seizures, which reduced 99 percent of her speech ability and 90 percent of her decision-making capability.
Zarif warned that “her situation isn’t unique in Iran.”
On Dec. 16, 2020, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiee said U.S. sanctions have caused trouble to Iran’s authorities even to “supply raw materials for medicine and industrial production parts.”
U.S. sanctions on Iran’s financial sector have made it difficult for Iranians to find payment channels for international trade. The local currency, the Iranian Rial, has experienced a dramatic loss of value since May 2018, when then U.S. President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the 2015 international nuclear agreement.
Also on Friday, Iranian health authorities registered 8,367 new COVID-19 infections, raising the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 1,673,470, IRNA reported.
Between Thursday and Friday, 81 new deaths related to the coronavirus were detected, pushing its death toll up to 60,512, spokeswoman for Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education Sima Sadat Lari said at her daily briefing.
Among the newly infected, 702 have to be hospitalized. Currently, there are 3,767 COVID-19 patients in critical condition in Iranian intensive care units, according to the spokesperson.
