In an interview with Sharq newspaper on May 24, 2019, Ms. Engineer Nire Pirouzbekht, the head of Iran's National Standard Organization, explained the role of this organization in the production and distribution of personal hygiene and protection equipment against the corona virus. :

I provide explanations about the items that are used a lot in Corona, including alcohol, masks, gloves and gel.. First, in parenthesis, I will say that for this issue, standards were defined in advance, which I will raise in general terms.. For years and even before the spread of Corona, the National Standards Organization has developed standards for various types of protection against viruses and…It has been compiled with the cooperation of the devices.

In general, the standard of respiratory protective equipment, protective clothing, i.e. the same clothes that are currently used as gowns in hospitals, gloves, surgical clothing, slippers and medical electrical equipment, detergents and sterilizers or sterilizers, and medical management have been compiled.. We have formulated many standards in advance and since the previous year, their implementation has been intensified.

Among the items that are related to the Corona issue, for the hygiene gels that we use these days, due to its nature, there is no standard at all, neither in Iran nor in other countries.. Alcohol has a standard, but only 96% alcohol has a standard, and this type of alcohol is subject to mandatory standard regulations.

70% alcohol, which is very popular these days, is not included in the mandatory standard and its supervision is not within our powers and duties.. The Ministry of Health must have the necessary controls on this alcohol. Regarding 96% alcohol, which is pure alcohol, we have 41 production units in the country. We have issued 34 standard mark permits and in recent months we have conducted about 271 tests on this product, 235 of which were accepted and unfortunately 36 were rejected.. As for the mask, the surgical mask has a three-layer standard, but this is an encouraging standard. Therefore, controls and monitoring of the quality of this product should be done by the Ministry of Health. In health and health related items, what is mandatory is within our authority, but supervision of products whose standards are not mandatory will be within the authority of the Ministry of Health.. The standard three-layer surgical mask is an incentive, and of course no manufacturer of this product has approached us to get the standard.. There is no standard for other masks, which are currently being used a lot and are produced in some homes, as you said, and the Ministry of Health itself must somehow check the minimum standards for these products and then give them approval to enter the market.. Of course, I think they do. About the gloves, disposable latex exam gloves have an encouraging standard.. Therefore, its control is under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health.

The standard of surgical gloves is mandatory, and we have eight valid licenses all over the country, which luckily got the standard mark, and we also controlled their products in the market.. In recent times, among the 19 samplings done, only one case was against the standard, and the rest had no problems.

But regarding latex gloves, considering that its standard was not mandatory, fortunately, two units in Urmia and Qazvin have approached us as an incentive and received the standard mark.. This was a general description of all items related to Corona.

Question : You said that the standard of 70% alcohol is not mandatory and it is very common that people use this alcohol these days. There have also been reports that chemical compounds were sold to people in the name of alcohol, but there was no alcohol in it.. Which agency is responsible for handling this issue?. Can the standard organization enter into this issue?

We can get into the issue, but monitoring this product is one of the duties of the Ministry of Health. Of course, considering the sensitivities we have on people's health, we controlled this category of products in the market. We also observed cases that we informed the relevant authorities. We reported one or two cases in the media and announced to the public that these alcohols are non-standard, but in general, monitoring this product is one of the duties of the Ministry of Health..

Taken and summarized : The website of Iran's National Standards Organization