The intensity of Iran’s air pollution in the past few days, in addition to a heavy flow of people going to hospital emergency rooms, has doubled the rate of heart attacks, the state-run Fars news agency reported on December 19, 2017. The country’s largest cities were heavily polluted last week, and schools were shut down in many of these cities. In cities like Tehran and Tabriz this has affected people’s physical condition.
Mojtaba Khaledi, a spokesperson for the emergency department, said that there was a 10% increase in emergency calls today compared to yesterday and a 20% increase of calls compared to last week.
“The rate of heart attacks in pre-hospital emergency services has doubled over the past week as well,” he added.