Tiny premature baby beats coronavirus in Iran

The infant - born in the city of Yazd weighing just 800 grams (1.76 pounds) - and his mother have both recovered after contracting the Covid-19 illness, according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu.

The baby, Amir Arsalan, now weighs 1200 grams, said Dr Mahmud Nuri, deputy rector of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.

The average newborn weighs between 2.5 and 4.5 kg (between 5.51 and 9.92 pounds).

Iran has witnessed the deadliest outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The Islamic Republic's first cases of the Covid-19 illness were detected in the Shia shrine city of Qom in February. It has since reported more than 91,000 cases of the virus, including 5,806 fatalities.

Johns Hopkins University data places Iran's outbreak as the eighth deadliest in the world.

Despite that, countries across the world have reported a number of heart-warming cases of elderly patients beating the illness despite evidence that the virus overwhelmingly claims as victims the elderly and chronicly ill.

In Iran last month, a 103-year-old woman was discharged from hospital after a week-long stay having reportedly "fully recovered from the virus.

Iranian officials also reported a 93-year-old man as having beaten the Covid-19 illness, while a 93-year-old woman in Turkey also recovered after contracting the novel coronavirus.

Although the respiratory illness appears to affect children less severely, premature infants are far more likely to suffer from respiratory distress and chronic health issues that could prove especially dangerous when combined with the virus.

However, the forty-day-old Iranian baby is not the only premature infant to have beaten the Covid-19 illness.

In Scotland, a baby born eight-weeks premature was diagnosed with the virus just three weeks after birth but quickly recovered from the deadly illness.

Globally, more than 3,018,038 cases have been confirmed of the infection, which has killed 207,725 people so far.

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