Iran official death toll tops 4,500

Iran’s health ministry reports another 111 fatalities from the novel coronavirus, taking the official overall death toll in the worst-hit Middle East country to 4,585.

Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour says 1,617 new infections takes the total number of cases in the country’s outbreak to 73,303, of whom 45,983 have recovered.

“The trend of relatively stable and decreasing new cases of contamination, which has been observed in recent days, has also continued over the past 24 hours,” he tells a televised news conference.

Iran announced its first COVID-19 cases on February 19, when it said two people died of the disease in the holy Shiite city of Qom.

But there has been speculation abroad that the real toll of the disease in the Islamic Republic could be much higher.

The opposition MEK group puts the death toll at over 26,000

— ToI staff and AFP