The death toll from alcohol poisoning in Iran has risen to 300 after people started to consume methanol because of a rumour that high proof alcohol could cure the coronavirus.

Iranian media reports that more than 1,000 have been sickened so far by ingesting methanol across the Islamic Republic, where drinking alcohol is banned and where those who do rely on bootleggers.

It comes as Tehran announced 144 new deaths from coronavirus on Friday, bringing its death toll to 2,378, and another 2,926 new confirmed cases, with a total of more than 32,300 infected.

There have been a spate of fake remedies spreading across social media in Iran, where people remain deeply suspicious of the government after it downplayed the crisis for days before it overwhelmed the country.

A person in protective clothing walks through a temporary 2,000-bed hospital set up by the Iranian army at the international exhibition center in northern Tehran, Iran, on Thursday

Dr. Knut Erik Hovda, a clinical toxicologist in Oslo who studies methanol poisoning and fears Iran's outbreak could be even worse than reported, said: 'The virus is spreading and people are just dying off, and I think they are even less aware of the fact that there are other dangers around.'

'When they keep drinking this, there's going to be more people poisoned.'

Iran as been particularly badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which is home to 80 million people.

As of now, there is no known cure for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Scientists and doctors continue to study the virus and search for effective medicines and a vaccine.

But in messages forwarded and forwarded again, Iranian social media accounts in Farsi falsely suggested a British school teacher and others cured themselves of the coronavirus with whiskey and honey, based on a tabloid story from early February.

Mixed with messages about the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, some wrongly believed drinking high-proof alcohol would kill the virus in their bodies.

The Islamic Republic has reported over 29,000 confirmed cases and more than 2,200 deaths from the virus, the highest toll of any country in the Middle East.

International experts also fear Iran may be under-reporting its cases, as officials for days played down the virus ahead of a parliamentary election.

That fear of the virus, coupled with poor education and internet rumors, saw dozens sickened by drinking bootleg alcohol containing methanol in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan province and its southern city of Shiraz.

Videos aired by Iranian media showed patients with IVs stuck in their arms, laying on beds otherwise needed for the fight against the coronavirus, including an intubated 5-year-old boy who had been turned blind from the alcohol poisoning.

Firefighters disinfect a square against the new coronavirus, in western Tehran, Iran

Iranian media also reported cases in the cities of Karaj and Yazd.

The government mandates that manufacturers of toxic methanol add an artificial color to their products so the public can tell it apart from ethanol, the kind of alcohol that can be used in cleaning wounds.

Ethanol is also the kind of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, though its production is illegal in Iran.

Some bootleggers in Iran use methanol, adding a splash of bleach to mask the added color before selling it as drinkable.

Sometimes it is mixed with consumable alcohol to stretch supply, other times it comes as methanol, falsely advertised as drinkable.

Methanol also can contaminate traditionally fermented alcohol.

Methanol cannot be smelled or tasted in drinks. It causes delayed organ and brain damage. Symptoms include chest pain, nausea, hyperventilation, blindness and even coma.

Dr. Javad Amini Saman said: 'It is rumored that alcohol can wash and sanitize the digestive system.'

'That is very wrong.'

A member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard disinfects a taxi to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in downtown Tehran

Even before the outbreak, methanol poisoning had taken a toll in Iran. One academic study found methanol poisoning sickened 768 people in Iran between September and October 2018 alone, killing 76.

Other Muslim nations that ban their citizens from drinking also see such methanol poisoning, although Iran appears to be the only one in the pandemic so far to turn toward it as a fake cure.

In Buddhist Cambodia, police said they seized 4,200 liters (1,100 gallons) of methanol from a man who unwittingly planned to make toxic hand sanitizer because of the virus outbreak.

Muslim drinkers in Iran can be punished with cash fines and 80 lashes. However, minority Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians can drink alcoholic beverages in private.

While police occasionally announce alcohol busts, the trade in nontoxic alcohol also continues. Locally made Iranian arak from fermented raisins, known as Aragh sagi, sells for $10 for a 1.5-liter bottle. Imported vodka sells for $40 a bottle.

Rafik, an Iranian-Armenian who makes vodka in the basement of his Tehran home said: 'Every year during Nowruz, or the Persian New Year holidays that begin March 21, my customers double.'

He spoke on the condition that only his first name be used for fear of arrest.

'This year, because of corona, it jumped up by four- or five-fold.'

Farhad, a self-described heavy drinker who lives in central Tehran, said alcohol remains easy to find for those looking for it.

'Even you can find it offered when you are walking down the street, ' he said.

Since 1979, Iran's 40 alcohol factories have seen their production changed to pharmaceutical needs and sanitizers.

Others had been left idle, like the abandoned Shams alcohol factory east of Tehran.

But now, in a time when even some mosques in Iran hand out high-proof alcohol as a sanitizer, officials plan to start work again at Shams to produce 22,000 liters of 99 per cent alcohol a day.