This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

About 8% of the Iranian parliament’s MPs have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials have said, as the country announced plans to mobilise 300,000 soldiers and volunteers against the deadliest outbreak of the epidemic outside China.

While China, where the virus originated, expressed hopes it was winning its battle and the World Health Organization (WHO) said it could be contained, Iran’s deputy speaker, Abdul Reza Misri, confirmed on Tuesday that 23 MPs had caught the illness.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, ordered its armed forces to assist health officials in combating the outbreak. “Whatever helps public health and prevents the spread of the disease is good and what helps to spread it is sin,” he said.

The government announced a death toll of 77 and a total of 2,336 confirmed cases in Iran, 835 more than the previous total. Experts fear the country’s high ratio of deaths to infections – about 3.3% – may mean the actual infection figure is far greater.

Two senior Iranian officials have already died from the virus and several more are infected. Semi-official news agencies on Tuesday reported that the head of the country’s emergency medical services, Pirhossein Kolivand, was now also ill.

Speaking in Geneva, the WHO head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said about 3.4% of confirmed cases of the coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, had died, far above seasonal flu’s fatality rate of under 1%.

'An absolute disaster': Iran struggles as coronavirus spreads Read more

But he said the virus could be contained. “To summarise, Covid-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick, it causes more severe illness than flu, there are not yet any vaccines or therapeutics, and it can be contained,” Ghebreyesus said.

Fast-spreading outbreaks in the Middle East, Europe and South Korea – where authorities declared “war” on the virus after 582 new cases took its total to more than 5,000, with 34 deaths – contrasted with the apparent optimism in Beijing.

Chinese officials said on Tuesday the count of new virus cases fell again to just 125, after a six-week low of 202 the previous day, although China remains by far the hardest-hit country, with 80,151 cases and 2,943 deaths.

China’s ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, said the country was winning its fight against the virus. “We definitely believe that with the coming of spring we’re not far from the coming of the victory of the final defeat of Covid-19,” he said.

The country, which imposed draconian quarantines and travel restrictions to keep large swathes of the population indoors for weeks, now appears as concerned about the risk of importing infections as it is about new domestic cases.

It has confirmed 13 such cases so far, including eight Chinese nationals who worked at the same restaurant in the Lombardy region of Italy. Guangdong province and Shanghai said they would require all travellers, including Chinese nationals, coming from South Korea, Iran, Japan and Italy to be quarantined for two weeks.

Globally, the virus has now killed more than 3,100 people and infected more than 90,000 in more than 60 countries, even as a clear shift in the crisis emerges, with nine times as many cases now recorded outside China as inside.

The most serious outbreaks are in South Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan, the WHO said. In the South Korean capital of Seoul, drive-through virus-testing centres began operating, with workers in white protective suits leaning into cars with mouth swabs, and troops were dispatched across the city to spray streets with disinfectant.

President Moon Jae-in said the country was now waging “war” on the virus and the government would inject $25bn (£19.5bn) into measures to contain it, as well as funding clinics and offering aid for small businesses.

In Italy, Europe’s worst-affected country, the death toll rose to 79 and the total infection count rose to more than 2,500, officials said on Tuesday, adding it could take up to two weeks to know whether measures including quarantines in 11 northern towns were working.

While Italy has placed a number of towns in lockdown, most countries have stopped short of following China by imposing mass quarantines, instead it has discouraged large gatherings, delayed sporting events and banned arrivals from virus-hit nations.

In other developments on Tuesday:

Morocco, Andorra, Armenia, Czech Republic, Iceland, Indonesia and Ukraine confirmed their first cases.

Australia, which has 38 confirmed cases, said it would use a little-known biosecurity law to restrict the movements of people suspected of having the virus.

In the US, which now has more than 100 cases, a man tested positive in New York state, bringing the total there to two. Six people have died in Washington state. An emergency funding bill to fund vaccine development and offer disaster loans to businesses is in preparation.

Japan’s Olympics minister said the country was making “the utmost effort” to proceed with the planned opening on 24 July in Tokyo, but added the games could be delayed to later in the year if needed.

Pakistan reported a new case, bringing its total to five since last week, while neighbouring India reported three more cases, including an Italian national.

Germany’s confirmed cases rose to 188 on Tuesday from 157 on Monday afternoon; the Leipzig book fair was cancelled.

The Swiss army confined all its soldiers to barracks after a case was discovered in their ranks.

French health authorities reported a fourth death on Tuesday, after 191 confirmed cases, and the president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the requisitioning of all face mask stocks and future production.

Spain’s confirmed cases rose to about 150 from around 120, while the number of cases in Sweden rose to 24 from 15.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from the G7 group of leading western nations pledged after a conference call on Tuesday to use “all appropriate policy tools” to maintain growth as fallout from the epidemic continued to hit economies around the world.