Tehran (AFP)
Iran announced a new death from coronavirus in the country on Saturday, bringing the death toll from the disease to five and the number of infected people to 28.
"We have ten new confirmed cases of COVID-19," health ministry spokesman Kianouche Jahanpour said on state television. "One of the 10 infected people unfortunately died," he added.
The spokesman did not specify the place of death, but said eight of the people infected with the virus had been hospitalized in the holy Shiite city of Qom, 150 km south of Tehran, and two in the Iranian capital.
Iran announced the first two illness-related deaths of elderly Iranians on Wednesday in Qom, a city that hosts large numbers of students at its seminars and also attracts pilgrims.
These were the first confirmed deaths from this disease in the Middle East.
Iran has since tested 785 suspected cases, said Jahanpour. "Most of the cases are either residents of Qom" or people who have stayed there.
On Thursday, Iraq, a neighbor worried about the deaths in Iran due to the new coronavirus, prohibited Iranians from entering its soil and its nationals from visiting the Islamic Republic, "until further notice".
Kuwait Airways, the national airline of Kuwait, also announced that it would suspend all its flights to Iran.
© 2020 AFP