Press TV - Iran’s health ministry is taking the delivery of 14 new hospitals across the country amid a surge in coronavirus cases that has increased the need for treatment facilities.

Iranian minister for Roads and Urban Development said on Wednesday that three out of the 14 new hospitals had already been handed over to the health ministry.

Mohammad Eslami said those facilities are located in the cities in center, north and northwest of the country and have a total 547 beds.

Eslami added that three more new hospitals in southeast, northwest and north of Iran with 603 beds will be handed over to the ministry of health once administrative hurdles are cleared.

The minister said construction for another group of hospitals in eight Iranian cities with 1,100 beds will finish until the end of the current Iranian calendar year on March 19.

The construction of the new hospitals comes as Iran struggles to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has killed nearly 100 people and infected around 3,000 more.

Health authorities have said that there would be a need for more hospitals if the infection spreads to more people and areas across Iran.

Some local authorities in the Iranian provinces have already moved to set up new hospitals using prefabricated buildings.

That comes as more than 1,200 hospitals and clinics across Iran have been ordered to process and treat patients suspected of having coronavirus.

Iranian authorities had said in November that the number of new hospital beds added to the country’s health system in the current calendar year would be a record high in four decades of 8,100.