71 coronavirus patients lost their lives in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 8,659, she added.

There are at least 2,755 people in intensive care, Lari said, adding that, of those tested positive for the virus, 146,748 have recovered and been discharged from hospital.

So far, 1,219,400 tests have been taken across the country to detect infected cases, said the Health Ministry spokeswoman.

According to Worldometer, which is a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, the global death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 428,753 with 7,765,878 cases and more than 3,983,751 recoveries.