Introduction

Starting in late December 2019, several patients with acute respiratory illnesses raised in China. On January 7th, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared that a novel coronavirus, SARS-COV-2*, was detected from the throat swab sample of one of their patients. Presenting mainly with respiratory symptoms, the disease was subsequently called Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Adalja, Toner, & Inglesby, 2020; N. Chen et al., 2020; Diao et al., 2020). The rapid emergence of COVID-19 led WHO authorities to announce pandemic on late march 2020 (”WHO Pandemic declaration (April 17th 2020) https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19—11-march-2020 ”). By May 5th, confirmed cases outreached 3,747,292 from 212 countries with overall 258,962 death (”Worldometers (April 29th 2020) Number of affected COVID-19 worldwide https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries,”). Infections with novel coronavirus manifest as fever, nonproductive cough, dyspnea, myalgia, fatigue, anorexia, anosmia, lymphopenia, and evidence of pneumonia on radiographic studies. Symptoms’ severity could range from mild self-limiting symptoms to severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), or multiple organ failure (X. Chen et al., 2020).
Although Iran is among the top countries with exceeding the number of COVID-19 cases since March 2020, few reports are available on the clinical picture, management, and ultimate disease course of our patients. By this case series, we aim to describe the epidemiologic features alongside the clinical presentations, and outcomes from 354 patients with confirmed COVID-19 in Iran.
* severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2