The death toll in a part of Iran is higher for people trying to avoid the coronavirus infection than it is for those who were actually infected.
It boils down to people believing that drinking bootleg alcohol would ward off the disease.
MSN reports that the death toll from alcohol poisoning in Iran rose to 44 on Tuesday (local time) over misguided efforts to ward off the new coronavirus by drinking bootleg alcohol.
The outbreak of the virus in the Islamic republic is one of the deadliest outside of China, where the disease originated.
The highest poisoning toll struck in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, where it grew by 16 to reach 36 on Tuesday, MSN reports.
They had "drank bootleg alcohol over rumours that it would be effective in treating coronavirus and were poisoned", Iran’s state news agency IRNA reports.
The poisoning toll in Khuzestan is higher than its 18 direct deaths from coronavirus, according to IRNA. Seven more people have died from bootleg alcohol in the northern region of Alborz and one in Kermanshah, western Iran.
Iran has scrambled to try to contain the spread of COVID-19 which has hit all of its 31 provinces, killing 291 people and infecting more than 8,000.
