Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s temporary release from Evin prison in Tehran has been extended by a minimum of a month as Iran continues to battle its coronavirus outbreak.

The British-Iranian dual national was told on Tuesday about the development, which confirmed a general statement about the extension of prisoners’ furlough made by the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, on Sunday. She was due to return to prison this weekend.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been living at her parents’ house in the Iranian capital while wearing an electronic tag, will not have to return to prison until at least 20 May. While on release she has been able to contact her husband Richard Ratcliffe in London and their five-year-old child, Gabriella, as many as five times a day.

It was also reported that 1,000 foreign prisoners were released as part of the Iranian furlough programme, introduced due to fears that coronavirus was sweeping through crowded Iranian prisons.

Richard Ratcliffe welcomed the latest move and said the family has asked his wife be granted clemency. Ratcliffe agreed to hold off heavy campaigning until June to give the British and Iranian diplomats time to reach a solution.

Ratcliffe met the British ambassador to Iran in London for an update a fortnight ago. “This is a lot more normal,” he told the BBC. “We have been complaining about the prosaics of home schooling and normal parenting – it’s been nice to muddle our way through that together. It’s funny how quickly that almost becomes normal again seeing her on a Skype screen and being able to talk to her late at night and early in morning. It’s lovely.”

Mahmoud Behzadi-Rad, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyer, told the semi-official Iranian news agency IRNA on Tuesday that his client’s leave was extended again during a visit to the prison’s supervising judge.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport while travelling to show her young daughter, Gabriella, to her parents in April 2016. She was sentenced to five years in prison, accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denies.

She was later afforded diplomatic protection by the UK government, which argues that she is innocent and that her treatment by Iran failed to meet obligations under international law.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s constituency MP, Tulip Siddiq, tweeted on Tuesday morning: “Very happy to hear from Richard Ratcliffe that Nazanin’s furlough has been extended for a month – in line with other prisoners in Iran.”

The Labour MP added: “Now is the time for our government to do all it can to make it permanent.”

Amnesty International said: “There should be no question of Nazanin ever being sent back to Evin prison. There are numerous reports of Covid-19 in Iranian jails, with detainees pleading for basic things like soap to help combat the disease.”

In a league table of press freedom Reporters without Borders said Iran had slipped a further three places and was now 173rd out of 178 countries.

Iran insists its official figures showed the coronavirus was being brought slowly under control. A total of 88 new deaths in the past 24 hours and 1,297 new cases were recorded, the health ministry said on Tuesday. This brings the total number of deaths in Iran due to the virus to 5,297. The total number of new infections has been stable for the past four days after a period of sharp decline. Iran claims to have performed over 350,000 tests for the disease, an increasing number that is likely to lead to a higher number of identified cases.

The country has struggled to contain the virus outbreak since reporting its first cases on 19 February. Some officials and health experts in Iran and abroad have said the country’s casualty figures may be higher than it has declared.

Iran allowed businesses – except those considered high-risk such as restaurants and gyms – to reopen after closing most of its economy in mid-March. The reopening drew criticism from health experts and even some government officials.