At least 44 people have died of methanol poisoning in Iran — mistakenly thinking that downing bootleg booze would ward off Covid-19, according to the state news agency.
Despite alcohol being banned in most of the Islamic Republic, it is responsible for hundreds of patients being hospitalized because of fake rumors that it would save drinkers from the virus that has killed 291 and infected more than 8,000 there, the state news agency IRNA reported, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The death toll from alcohol poisoning in the province of Khuzestan reached 36 Tuesday — double those killed by the coronavirus in that region, the report says.
The bootleg alcohol has killed seven more people in the northern region of Alborz and one in Kermanshah, western Iran.
Jundishapur medical university in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan, has seen more than 200 people hospitalized for poisoning, spokesman Ali Ehsanpour told the state agency, according to AFP. The cases were caused by “rumors that drinking alcohol can be effective in treating coronavirus,” Ehsanpour confirmed.
The unknown nature of the new coronavirus has sparked a series of wildly inaccurate rumors — with many even initially thinking its name meant it was connected to Corona beer.
Map of coronavirus cases in the US
French officials were also forced to send out an alert on Twitter Sunday saying, “No, Cocaine does NOT protect against # COVID19. It is an addictive drug that causes serious side effects and is harmful to people’s health.”