Iran's Ministry of Health says it is highly likely that the Ebola virus will be brought to Iran by travelers; therefore, strict controls have been put into place to handle such eventuality.
The head of the ministry's Contagious Diseases Department announced that each province has one designated hospital to deal with Ebola patients if a case is identified. Mohammad Mehdi Gouya added that staff are now being trained in the appropriate protocols for dealing with Ebola cases.
In October, the health minister had said that there were no quarantine facilities for Ebola patients in Iran but now it appears that each province is prepared to deal with the emergence of potentially deadly virus.
The Ebola virus has claimed more than 5,000 lives in West Africa and a handful of cases have also been identified in Europe and the United States.
According to the World Health Organization, hundreds of thousands of vaccines are to be administered by December, with Liberia and Sierra Leon as the primary destinations.
