Twenty-seven people died from methanol poisoning in Iran after rumours that drinking alcohol can help 'cure' the novel coronavirus infection, state news agency IRNA reported.

Twenty have died in the southwestern province of Khuzestan and seven in the northern region of Alborz after consuming bootleg alcohol, IRNA said. Drinking alcohol is banned in Iran for everyone except some non-Muslim religious minorities. A spokesman for Jundishapur medical university in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan told AFP that 218 people had been hospitalised there after being poisoned.

The deputy prosecutor of Alborz, Mohammad Aghayari, told IRNA the dead had drunk methanol after being "misled by content online, thinking they were fighting coronavirus and curing it."

Iran is one of the countries worst hit by the coronavirus, and has been scrambling to contain the spread of the illness which has hit all of the country's 31 provinces, killing 237 people and infecting 7,161. The authorities have tried to limit the spread of COVID-19 by closing schools and urging people not to travel.

The coronavirus death toll has crossed 4,000 worldwide, with close to 1,13,000 infected people. In mainland China, where the virus first exploded, more than 80,000 people have been diagnosed and more than 58,000 have so far recovered.