Over 700 people have been reportedly confirmed dead in Iran after ingesting poisonous methanol, mistakenly thinking it has the potency to cure the new coronavirus.
Aljazeera.com reports that the National Coroner's Authority (NCA) said the toxic alcohol has killed at least 728 Iranians between February 20 and April 7, 2020.
The report highlighted that only 66 persons died from alcohol poisoning in 2019.
As Iran grapples with the novel coronavirus pandemic, the country has witnessed an alarming increase of alcohol poisoning in 2019/2020 according to a government report released earlier in April 2020.
Iranian health ministry spokesman, Kianoush Jahanpour, said 5,011 people had been poisoned from methanol alcohol.
He added that some 90 people have also lost their eyesight or are suffering eye damage as a result.
According to Hossein Hassanian, a health ministry adviser, the final tally of people who lost their eyesight could increase.
Currently, Iran is dealing with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the Middle East with 5,806 deaths over 91,000 confirmed cases.
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.
The Iranian government mandates that manufacturers of toxic methanol add artificial colour to their products so the public can tell it apart from ethanol, the kind of alcohol that can be used in cleaning wounds.
In a series of tweets on its verified Twitter handle as at 11:50 pm, NCDC made the announcement as Nigeria's coronavirus cases tragically soared to 1532 figure benchmark.
According to the disease control agency, 80 of the cases were recorded in Lagos, with Kano coming second on the log with whopping 38 cases - the highest reported so far since the outbreak of the virus in the state.
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