The coronavirus that originated in a Wuhan seafood market has now come to infect a top official in Iran as the country fights its own outbreak.

Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi has been at the forefront of his country’s response to the Covid-19 virus, giving briefings to both officials and journalists over the past couple of days.

However, on Tuesday, it was announced that he himself had been infected with the virus.

Deputy Health Minister of #Iran Harirchi who has been briefing officials & journalists in the past couple of days has been confirmed to be infected with #CoronaVirus. He said in a video message that “we will defeat Corona”.#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/sgtMiDMbcC — Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) February 25, 2020

So far, the virus has infected at least 95 people in Iran and killed 15.

The country’s government has criticized for its response to the outbreak and even accused of engineering a cover-up to hide the severity of the problem.

Iran’s virus death toll is the highest of any country outside of China while its number of confirmed cases is suspiciously low.

A member of parliament representing the city of Qom has declared that 50 people have died there and 250 have been quarantined.

Harirchi denied this claim, maintaining that if the death toll in Qom were even a quarter of that, then he would resign.

Meanwhile, a number of other countries in the region — like Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, and Afghanistan — have recorded their first coronavirus cases via travelers arriving from Iran.

In response, many of Iran’s neighbors have issued travel bans and closed their borders with the country.