TEHRAN — Iran’s most advanced and biggest burn center will open in Tehran by 2017, Iran University of Medical Sciences chancellor said on Wednesday.

The hospital is being set up on a land area of 52,000 square meters of which 45,000 square meters is allocated to the treatment and care services and the rest would be assigned to research facilities, IRNA news agency quoted Javad Haji-Mir-Ismael as saying.

“So far we have spent some 400 billion rials (nearly $11.5m) on the construction of the 150-bed hospital and we need an additional 860 billion rials (nearly $24.5m) to complete the project,” Haji-Mir-Ismael noted.

Currently the survival rate of the burn patients in Iran is 60 to 65 percent which means one patient out of two, he said, adding, “With the new hospital coming on stream next year we hope to increase the number to 90 percent.”

MQ/MG