Dozens of people have died of alcohol poisoning in one Iranian province - far more than have been killed by the coronavirus there.

A rumour has lingered in Iranian society following the spread of the coronavirus that drinking alcohol helps those who have contracted the disease.

According to Mohammad Javad Moradian, director of Fars' emergency service centre, Covid-19 had claimed 13 lives in the province.

The drinking of industrial-strength alcohol had killed 66 people during the same period, he told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

Just shy of five million people live in Fars.

Iran's death toll has now risen to more than 1,500 (
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)

Iran's death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose by more than 100 to 1,556 on Saturday.

The total number of people infected now exceeds 20,000, health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said on state TV.

Mr Jahanpur warned that coronavirus cases would rise steeply unless people refrain from travelling during the two-week Iranian New Year holiday, which started yesterday.

An Iranian health inspector checks a makeshift hospital set up inside the Iran Mall, northwest of Tehran (
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said social distancing measures would only last for two to three weeks (
Image:
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

"If people take it lightly and think that the coronavirus outbreak is over, and if urban and inter-city traffic and gatherings in resorts and natural parks increase ... then in one to two weeks we will see a new peak of the disease," he said, according to ISNA news agency.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that social distancing measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak, including travel restrictions, will apply for only two to three
weeks, expecting the crisis to ease by then.

Iran "has to do everything necessary to return economic production to normal," he said in comments broadcast on state TV.

He also accused "counter-revolutionaries" of plotting to shut down economic production.