TEHERAN • Iran announced yesterday that another 75 people had died of the coronavirus, bringing the overall number of deaths to 429 out of more than 10,000 infections.
It is the highest single-day death toll in the three weeks since the Islamic republic announced its first deaths from the outbreak last month.
"In the past 24 hours, 1,075 people have been infected... bringing the total number of infected people to 10,075 cases," Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said at a televised news conference.
"Seventy-five people hospitalised in the past few days have lost their lives and today, a total of 429 infected people are no longer with us," he added.
The outbreak of the coronavirus in Iran is one of the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated.
Iran announced its first deaths, in the Shi'ite holy city of Qom, on Feb 19.
It is yet to officially impose quarantine but the authorities have repeatedly called on people to refrain from travelling.
They have closed schools and universities.
Ahead of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year holidays that start on March 20 this year, the authorities in several provinces have also issued orders to close hotels and other tourist accommodation to discourage travel.
But yesterday, Mr Jahanpour said: "Rumours of quarantine of cities and closure of petrol stations are false."
The office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced on Monday that he has cancelled his annual Nowruz speech because of the outbreak and will not travel to Mashhad, his birthplace.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation said Iran was "doing its best" to combat the virus as it called for the country to be given more support.
"We are trying to mobilise more support for Iran," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.
He added that the country needed more supplies.
Iran said yesterday that it has sought immediate financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund to help it combat the outbreak, in what would be its first such loan in decades.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
