TEHRAN (FNA)- Head of the Iranian Health Ministry's Information Department Kianoush Jahanpour said that his country has the most equipped and highest number of laboratories to diagnose coronavirus among the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO).

"Today, over 130 laboratories conduct confirmed tests (on coronavirus patients) in conditions of sanctions and except a number of Persian Gulf (Arab) littoral states which have bought services (from other countries), no country in the EMRO region has such a laboratorial structure," Jahanpour told FNA on Sunday.

He added that certain countries were deliberately after troubling Iran's anti-coronavirus structure, but they failed.

Jahanpour said that Iran's relative success in screening people for coronavirus infection in March and April has turned into a role model for a number of countries, including Britain, adding, "Our method to identify and treat patients in our country was useful, inexpensive and based on the existing infrastructure."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said earlier this month that over 1,000 medical centers in the country have received necessary equipment to conduct tests on people suspected of infection to coronavirus, and added that Iran ranks first in the Muslim world in scientific achievements.

"Based on a report [by the health ministry], 1,200 centers across the country are ready to take samples and tests from people and 17,500 nursing and health homes are also prepared to provide hygiene and treatment services to people," Rouhani said, addressing a meeting of the national coronavirus campaign headquarters in Tehran.

The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting approximately all countries and territories around the world. The virus was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. It has so far killed more than 497,300 people and infected over 9.92 million others globally.

The Iranian foreign ministry declared that despite Washington’s claims of cooperation to transfer drugs to Iran via the new Swiss-launched payment mechanism, the US is troubling the process amid the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

Although US claims that medicines and medical equipment are not under sanctions, they have practically blocked the transfer of Iran’s financial resources in other countries into the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said.

As the death toll from the virus surges, Iran intensifies its preventive safety measures. Closures of schools and most universities have been extended until further notice.