Iran to bar travellers from India over COVID-19 variant, officials say

Iran said on Saturday that it would bar travellers from India over a COVID-19 variant to avert its spread in the already stricken country. Officials, however, did not say if any cases of the variant first identified in India in late March had been detected in Iran, the epicentre of the pandemic in the Middle East. “The Indian coronavirus is a new threat we face,” President Hassan Rouhani said in remarks broadcast on state TV. “The Indian virus is more dangerous than the English and Brazilian variants,” he added. Iran's civil aviation organisation announced on local media that all flights to and from India and Pakistan would be halted from midnight Sunday.<br/>