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Coronavirus: Iran death toll leaps to 92 as infection spreads to almost all provinces
- Tehran and Qom are the worst-hit regions with 253 and 101 new cases of Covid-19 respectively
- Friday prayers have been cancelled across all provincial capitals amid the outbreak
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An outbreak of novel coronavirus has affected almost all of Iran’s 31 provinces, President Hassan Rowhani said on Wednesday, according to the official presidency website.
“This disease is a widespread disease,” he said during a cabinet meeting. “It has reached almost all our provinces and in one sense it’s a global disease.”
Iran’s health ministry on Wednesday announced 92 people had died from coronavirus, one of the highest death tolls outside China where the outbreak originated. It said 2,922 people had been infected with coronavirus.
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The provinces of Tehran and Qom were the worst-hit with 253 and 101 new cases of Covid-19 respectively, according to the health ministry.
The Shiite holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, is the epicentre of Iran’s coronavirus outbreak and where its first deaths were reported on February 19.
Meanwhile, the outbreak disrupted Islamic worship in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia on Wednesday banned its citizens and other residents of the kingdom from performing the pilgrimage in Mecca, while Iran cancelled Friday prayers in major cities.
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