Iran said on Thursday that three more people have been infected with the new coronavirus that originated in central China, following an announcement the day before that two people had died of the illness caused by the virus in the Iranian city of Qom.
All schools and universities, including religious Shiite seminaries, were shut down in the holy city of Qom, according to the official IRNA news agency. Other news reports said Iran had recently evacuated 60 Iranian students from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicentre of the epidemic.
Qom, located around 140 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran, is a popular religious destination and a centre of learning and religious studies for Shiite Muslims from inside Iran, as well as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and Azerbaijan.