Nearly 10% of Iranian lawmakers have been infected with the coronavirus, Iranian state media reported Tuesday, as the country accused of concealing information about the virus struggles to contain an outbreak that has hit the highest levels of government.

The prevalence of coronavirus among Iran's political leadership appears to be a unique example of the virus' deep impact on a nation's authorities, even compared to China, the epicenter of the disease, where there are 80,151 confirmed cases and 2,943 deaths.

Iranian media reported that 23 members of the Islamic Republic's parliament now have the virus, as does the head of the country’s emergency services. On Monday, Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a close confidante and adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died of coronavirus. The virus has also killed Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican, as well as a recently elected member of parliament.

"These people have a close relationship with the people and they carry different viruses from different parts of the country, which may create a new virus, so we recommend the lawmakers to cut off their relationship with the public for now," lawmaker Abdolreza Mesri told Iranian state TV's Young Journalists Club program.

Coronavirus:China sees 'coming victory' over virus as global alarm spreads

In all, the virus has killed 92 people in Iran and there are 2,922 confirmed cases, according to state media. However, last week Iran was downplaying the number of infections and public health experts have advised caution over Iran's figures.

"When the virus began to spread in Wuhan, China, other countries took stock of their readiness against the disease. Iran did not prepare," said Amir Afkhami, an associate professor of psychiatry and global health at George Washington University.

"Instead, it continued to export face masks to China, causing a national shortage when its own hospitals needed masks in February. Iran also refused to restrict travelers from China, its largest trading partner, in all likelihood to avoid any deleterious impact on its already spiraling economy, which has been battered by U.S. sanctions."

Also sick: Masoumeh Ebtekar, known to many in Iran as "Sister Mary," the English-speaking spokeswoman for the Iranian students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked a 444-day hostage crisis that has come to define U.S.-Iran relations. Ebtekar is a vice president for women and family affairs in Iran.

Coronavirus live updates:US cases surpass 100 with 6 deaths; China sees 'coming victory'

Iraj Harirchi, Iran's deputy health minister and the head of a government task force on the coronavirus, has also tested positive. Last week, Harirchi was filmed coughing and repeatedly wiping his sweaty brow as he briefed journalists on the virus.

Iran's outbreak has been traced to the holy city of Qom and religious leaders there have been reluctant to close Islamic shrines or to quarantine the area. He subsequently posted a video that was broadcast on state TV acknowledging he'd caught the virus.

Reflecting a new sense of urgency, Khamenei on Tuesday put Iran's armed forces on alert after authorities previously announced the military would be mobilized. Khamenei didn't specify how the military would help confront the virus. In recent days, images of trucks appearing to sanitize streets in some Iranian cities emerged on social media. Images and video circulating on social media also appear to show suffering Iranians in public places, such as shopping malls. These images and video could not be immediately verified, nor could the number of parliamentarians who have fallen ill.

Iran also announced that tens of thousands of prisoners would be permitted to go on furlough to prevent the virus spreading in jails.

Iran has for years been highly protective of the information it releases about what happens in the country, but its credibility took a major dent earlier this year when the government issued misleading statements about what military officials knew about Iran's shooting down of a Ukrainian commercial jetliner. The downing of the plane came amid high alert for a U.S. counterattack following Tehran's firing of ballistic missiles at American forces in Iraq.

Coronavirus:Feds strive to speed up coronavirus testing after CDC's slow start: 'The opportunity was missed'

A recent analysis by The Economist magazine found that democracies were better at containing and treating disease outbreaks than authoritarian regimes, despite the ability of dictatorships to impose severe and immediate controls on their populations – as China has done with its far-reaching travel restrictions and quarantine rules.

Based on data from all recorded epidemics since 1960 – including smallpox, Zika and Ebola – the analysis found democracies have lower mortality rates than non-democratic countries. Dictatorships are able to take swift and draconian actions, but they also tend to stifle the free flow of information that’s vital during a public health crisis, it concluded.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S. has offered assistance to Iran – conveyed through the government of Switzerland, since Washington and Tehran have no formal communications channel. Pompeo said that the U.S. had also made it clear to other countries that the Trump administration would not sanction humanitarian assistance dispatched to Iran.

It's not clear if Iran has responded.

Pompeo said that Iran’s healthcare infrastructure "is not robust" and its leaders have not been transparent about the scope of the outbreak. "I am very concerned that … (they are ) not sharing information," he told the committee.

Still, in an interview Sunday, the World Health Organization's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told CNBC that the WHO has its "own mechanism" for verifying information and that it has not noticed problems with Iran's reported virus figures.

Super Tuesday:A state-by-state breakdown of what to watch for on Super Tuesday, where 15 contests are up for grabs

More:Tracking the spread of coronavirus cases in the US and worldwide