A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on Monday.

The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier by and which stood at just 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.

A lawmaker from Iran’s Qom on Monday accused the government of covering up the full extent of the coronavirus outbreak in the holy city, according to semi-official news agency ISNA. In the report, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani accused Iran’s health minister of “lying” about the outbreak.

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But Iran’s government on Monday pledged to be transparent with its figures on a deadly outbreak of the new coronavirus in the country, amid allegations of a coverup.

“We will announce any figures (we have) on the number of deaths throughout the country. We pledge to be transparent about the reporting of figures,” government spokesman Ali Rabiei said in a news conference aired live on state television.

The ILNA news agency, which is close to reformists, said the lawmaker spoke of “50 deaths” in Qom alone.

“The rest of the media have not published this figure, but we prefer not to censor what concerns the coronavirus because people’s lives are in danger,” ILNA editor Fatemeh Madiani told AFP.

But the country’s deputy health minister rejected the report. “I categorically deny this information,” Iraj Harirchi said in a news conference aired live on state television.

“This is not the time for political confrontations. The coronavirus is a national problem,” he added.

Iran has been scrambling to contain the COVID-19 outbreak since it announced the first two deaths in the holy city of Qom on Wednesday last week.

Mr Farahani, was quoted in ILNA saying that more than 250 people are in quarantined in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shiites from across Iran and other countries.

He said the 50 deaths date as far back as February 13.

Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on February 19.

The new coronavirus originated in China sometime around December.

There are concerns that clusters in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread.

A top World Health Official expressed concerns Monday over the virus’ spread.

“We are worried about the situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran and in Italy,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Stockholm via a video link.

Authorities in Iran have closed schools across much of the country for a second day and as neighbouring countries reported infections from travellers from Iran, prompting several to shut their borders to Iranian citizens.

The number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.

Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus.

Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.

Kuwait announced on Monday its first cases of the virus, saying that three travellers returning from the northeastern city of Mashhad, Iran were confirmed infected with the coronavirus.

Iran, however, has not yet reported any confirmed cases of the virus in Mashhad, raising questions about how the government is carrying out tests and quarantines.

Iran has confirmed cases so far in five cities, including the capital, Tehran.

A local mayor in Tehran is among those infected and in quarantine. Kuwait has been evacuating some 750 citizens from Iran and testing them as they enter the country after saying that Iran had barred its medical workers from testing travellers at an exit terminal in Iran, despite an agreement to do so.

The three returning from Iran to Kuwait who were infected with the virus are being treated in Kuwait and were identified as a Kuwaiti male, 53, a Saudi male, 61, and the third was not identified except as a 21-year-old.

The news was reported by the Kuwait News Agency quoting the Kuwait Health Ministry. Iranian travelers with the virus have also been confirmed in Canada, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The outbreak in Iran has centered mostly on the city of Qom, but spread rapidly over the past few days as Iranians went to the polls on Friday for nationwide parliamentary elections, with many voters wearing masks and stocking up on hand sanitiser.

Iran is already facing diplomatic and economic isolation under US pressure.

The virus threatens to isolate Iran even further as countries shut their borders to Iranians.

Soccer fans across the country will not be allowed to attend matches, and shows in movie theatres and other venues were suspended until Friday.

Authorities have begun daily sanitisation of Tehran’s metro, which is used by some three million people, and public transportation cars in the city.

- Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.