A senior official at Iran's Ministry for Science, Research and Technology said on Saturday that the country's knowledge-based companies enjoy the capability to produce 1mln masks every day as part of the nationwide campaign against the coronavirus outbreak.
"The knowledge-based companies are active in different fields, including capability of daily production of 1mln masks, 1.5mln liters of disinfectants, ventilators, oxygen reservoirs, non-contact thermometer, protective gowns and diagnostic kits," Mehdi Keshmiri said.
He added that the knowledge-based and technological firms in Iran have also produced different types of machines to disinfect the environment and increased production of ventilators 6-fold.
Iranian Vice-President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari said last month that his country had exported machinery to produce face masks to prevent coronavirus epidemic to Denmark.
He also noted that the country has already exported coronavirus diagnostic kits to a number of countries.
Sattari had announced last month that Iranian knowledge-based firms had started manufacturing coronavirus test kits and eight countries have agreed to import such items from the country.
"Iran presently has a capacity of producing 1 million serology test kits per day and 1.5 million of C-Creative Protein (CPR) test kits per month," Sattari said.
"Part of the mentioned figure is used inside the country and the rest is exported," he added.
In relevant remarks on May 10, Deputy head of the Iranian presidency’s office for scientific affairs Mehdi Qalenoyee said that Iranian firms are going to export serological test kits to eight more countries after a first successful cargo was sent to Germany earlier in the week.
Qalenoyee said export of two types of coronavirus test kits to the Philippines and Pakistan was waiting for confirmation from the local officials after Iranian companies manufacturing the special tools sent sample kits to labs in those countries.
He added that India, Nigeria and Armenia will receive the items once travel restrictions are eased.
The official also said that Qatar, Georgia and Syria will soon be included in the list of export destination for the Iranian test kits.
The announcement comes a few days after Iran sent a first cargo of serological test kits to Germany, where officials are trying to conduct the tests on a great scale to identify the immunity rate against COVID-19.