A tourism official criticized the government’s neglectful approach to medical tourism, depriving the country of a considerable potential source of national income.

“The medical tourism, which offers a potential to attract many millions of tourists from the region and beyond, has been left neglected and is being managed only by one person,” Mohammad Reza Pouyandeh said in a recent talk with IRNA.

“In the not too distant past, our health and medical sector had a secretariat and was run by a specialized committee but the number of its experts has dropped to one,” he said.