Alcohol-related mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran: a commentary on happening a crisis amid another crisis

ABSTRACT

Background

COVID-19 is the name of the disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus, which appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and spread quickly around the world. One of the prescribed ways to control and reduce the prevalence of COVID-19 was to use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer/antiseptic with at least 70% ethanol alcohol. Unfortunately, with the introduction of alcohol to control COVID-19 in Iran, a growth of nonstandard and counterfeit alcohol consumption was witnessed. Nonstandard alcohol consumption in Iran has led to a significant increase in alcohol-related deaths during the outbreak of COVID-19.

Methods and materials

This commentary presents the statistics reported by official online media about alcohol poisoning in Iran.

Results

This commentary briefly describes why the outbreak happened and presents some policy implications, such as implementing a real-time Alcohol Surveillance System (ASS) to monitor, control, and adopt tailored efforts to reduce alcohol use and minimize its side effects.

Conclusion

Health policymakers and researchers need to design and communicate the overall structure of the alcohol surveillance system.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• alcohol-related disorders
• ethanol
• methanol
• sentinel surveillance
• poisoning

Abbreviations

AUDs	=	Alcohol use disorders
GBD	=	Global Burden of Diseases
IARD	=	International Alliance for Responsible Drinking
ILMO	=	Iranian Legal Medicine Organization
ACS	=	Alcohol Surveillance System

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Prof. Farhad Pourfarzi and Prof. Nouzar Nakhaee for their support of this publication.

Author’s contributions

VYF, TZM and HZ jointly conceptualized this commentary. HZ and TZM wrote the initial draft. VYF, TZM and MAS provided critical review and revision of the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

Data sharing does not apply to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study. All mentioned data about alcohol poisoning information is gathered from the official online news media.

Disclosure statement

We declare no competing interests. This work was supported by the Social Determinants of Health Research Centre, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This commentary was extracted as an additional finding of a project which the ethical committee approved of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences with code IR.ARUMS.REC.1399.072.

Additional information

Funding

This study had no financial support.