TEHRAN: Twenty-seven people have died from methanol poisoning in Iran after rumours that drinking alcohol can help cure the novel coronavirus infection, state news agency IRNA reported on Monday.

The outbreak of the virus in Islamic republic is one of the deadliest outside of China, where the disease originated. Twenty have died in the southwestern province of Khuzestan and seven in the northern region of Alborz after consuming bootleg alcohol, IRNA said.

Drinking alcohol is banned in Iran for everyone except some non-Muslim religious minorities.

Local media regularly report on lethal cases of poisoning caused by bootleg liquor.

A spokesman for Jundishapur medical university in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan, said 218 people had been hospitalised there after being poisoned.

The poisonings were caused by “rumours that drinking alcohol can be effective in treating coronavirus,” Ali Ehsanpour said.

The deputy prosecutor of Alborz, Mohammad Agha­yari, told IRNA the dead had drunk methanol after being “misled by content online, thinking they were fighting coronavirus and curing it.” If ingested in large quantities, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.

Iran has been scrambling to contain the spread of the COVID-19 illness which has hit all of the country’s 31 provinces, killing 237 people and infecting 7,161.

According to IRNA, 16 out of 69 confirmed cases have died of coronavirus infection in Khuzestan as of Sunday.Iran has temporarily freed about 70,000 prisoners to combat the spread of the coronavirus in jails, the head of the judiciary said as officials reported hundreds of new infections and dozens more deaths across the country.

Iran has reported 595 new infections and 43 new deaths within the past 24 hours. This takes total cases of coronavirus to 7,161, with 237 deaths, the health ministry spokesman said.

Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi announced the temporary release of prisoners as Iranian authorities seek to counter one of the worst national outbreaks and one of the highest death rates from the illness.

Raisi said the release of prisoners would continue “to the point where it doesn’t create insecurity in society”, according to the Mizan news site of the judiciary.

He did not give further details or specify when those released would have to return to jail.

Officials have expressed concern about the possibility of infections spreading during Nowruz, the beginning of the Iranian new year on March 20 which is usually a period where families travel to vacation spots around the country.

The health ministry has told Iranians to stay home and imposed restrictions on travel between provinces.

Despite the warnings, however, authorities have said there has been heavy traffic in recent days on roads headed north to the Caspian Sea, a traditional Nowruz vacation spot.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2020