Iranian state media has announced that a US Navy warship has seized a transport ship near the Chinese port of Qingdao on Wednesday morning.

The ship was reportedly en route to Iran loaded with medical manufacturing components, specifically zeolite, which Fars News Agency says is needed for manufacturing oxygen concentrators for coronavirus-infected patients.

"Only one imported part is used for production of oxygen concentrators, which is zeolite, and we are forced to purchase it from France and import it to the country through several intermediators," Peyman Bakhshandeh-Nejad, an Iran-based pharmaceutical company CEO told state media.