Fifty people have died from coronavirus in the Iranian city of Qom, the country’s semi-official ILNA news agency reported on Monday.
That came hours after wildly divergent figures were released by Iran’s state TV, which reported the death toll was only 12, with 47 people infected.
An official from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted by ILNA as saying more than 250 people were in quarantine in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shiites from across Iran and other countries.
He said the 50 deaths dated as far back as February 13. But the first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths in Iran were released on February 19.
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