Iranian state TV said that Morteza Rahmanzadeh, the mayor of district 13 of the capital Tehran, was hospitalised with coronavirus symptoms on Friday.
In turn, Iranian official denied that Rahmanzadeh had contracted the virus, saying he was in good health, according to the Fars news agency.
According to the latest data from the country’s Health Ministry, the total number of patients with coronavirus symptoms is 18.
Seven of the cases were in the city of Qom, where the first coronavirus case in the country was detected, four in Tehran, and two more in Gilan province, he added. Most of those infected are either Qom residents or have been to the city in recent days or weeks.
Meanwhile, a member of the infectious disease department of the Iranian Health Ministry, Mino Mahrez, said that coronavirus could spread to all cities of the country, as many people recently travelled from Qom to other cities in Iran, including Tehran, Arak and Rasht.
The novel coronavirus disease, dubbed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China's Hubei Province, in late December 2019 and has since spread to more than 25 other countries. The outbreak has already left over 75,000 people infected worldwide and resulted in more than 2,100 fatalities.
