State TV reports Iran mayor tests positive for coronavirus, official denies report

Dubai: Iranian state media has reported that a 6th person has died from the new virus COVID-19.

Earlier, An Iranian official has tested positive for coronavirus, state TV reported on Saturday.

Morteza Rahmanzadeh, the mayor of district 13 of the capital Tehran, was hospitalised with coronavirus symptoms on Friday, according to state TV.

But the Fars news agency later tweeted the director of public relations for district 13 had denied Rahmanzadeh had contracted the virus, saying he was in good health.

Meanwhile, state TV reported that Iran will close schools, universities and educational centres in two central cities to prevent a deadly coronavirus outbreak spreading.

It said the shutdown would begin on Sunday and last two days in Qom, where two people have died from the virus, and a week in Arak.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Iran first surfaced on Wednesday, when authorities said it claimed the lives of two elderly people in Qom, a Shiite holy city south of the capital.

They were the first confirmed deaths from the disease in the Middle East.

"We have 10 new confirmed cases of COVID-19," Iran's health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told state television on Saturday.

"One of the new cases has unfortunately passed away," he added, noting that eight of them had been hospitalised in Qom and two in Tehran, without specifying where the death occurred.

The latest cases take to 28 the total number of confirmed coronavirus infections in Iran.

The outbreak emerged in the lead-up to a parliamentary election on Friday.