Iran’s government on Thursday debuted a domestically made “coronavirus spray” it claims can “recognize” and “deactivate” the Chinese coronavirus.
Researchers at Tehran’s Masih Daneshvari hospital developed the spray and unveiled it at a press conference to Iranian media on April 29.
The liquid “should be sprayed on the mask or clothes, then it can recognize the virus and deactivate it [sic],” Alireza Zali, the head of Iran’s Coronavirus Control operations headquarters in Tehran, told Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency.
“What sets the [Chinese] coronavirus apart from other viruses is the S protein that when it is eliminated or removed, the virus is virtually inactivated,” Jalaleddin Ghanavi, the research project director of the team that developed the spray, told the Tehran Times.
“Therefore, a molecule was designed to attack the S protein and kill the virus,” Ghanavi said, adding, “each spray of this molecule on the mask and other protective equipment lasts up to eight hours.”
The spray’s alleged ability to detect the Chinese coronavirus seems reminiscent of a previous product promoted by Iran in April 2020, a so-called magnetic “bipolar coronavirus remote detector” that Iran claimed could “remotely detect people infected with the novel coronavirus and also the contaminated areas within a range of 100 meters.” Breitbart News noted the device resembled “fraudulent ‘bomb detectors’ that the Iranian regime used in a money-grab scheme in Iraq in 2017.”
“Today, the use of masks and protective equipment is still a very effective and inexpensive way and strategy to prevent virus transmission,” Ghanavi said at the April 29 press conference to mark the “anti-coronavirus” spray’s debut.
“But with the method we unveiled today, we can make ordinary masks very durable and turn them into special masks that inactivate the virus, and we can take a much more effective way to deal with the pandemic,” he claimed.
The spray will “soon be mass-produced and distributed” throughout Iran, according to the director of Tehran’s Masih Daneshvari hospital, Ali Akbar Velayati.
News of Iran’s new “anti-coronavirus” spray comes just four days after Tehran claimed it would begin producing a homegrown Chinese coronavirus vaccine candidate, despite the fact that it has yet to clear Phase III clinical trials.
One million doses of the domestically made “COV-Iran Barekat” vaccine candidate “will be delivered to the Iranian Health Ministry within one month,” Mohammad Mokhber, the head of “Iran’s scientific committee to combat Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus],” said in a statement on April 25.
Mokhber claimed an additional “3 to 3.5 million doses of the local vaccine will be produced by June, with production to reach 50 million doses by the end of September.”
The Chinese coronavirus death toll across 541 cities in Iran exceeded 270,700 as of April 29, according to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The PMOI/MEK maintains an independent tally of coronavirus deaths in Iran together with its affiliated dissident group, the National Council of the Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The two groups use “a combination of local confirmed cases and deaths and information from medical staff at major hospitals to keep track. The death rate the group has documented is significantly higher than official Iranian Islamic regime estimates,” according to Breitbart News.