TASS - In all, thirty Majlis lawmakers underwent testing for the virus, according to a parliamentarian

Four Iranian parliamentarians have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, member of the parliamentary presidium Mohammad Ali Vakili said in a tweet on Friday.

Thirty Majlis lawmakers underwent testing for coronavirus. At the moment, four of them have tested positive, he wrote in his Twitter account.

On Thursday, head of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Relations Commission Mojtaba Zonnour said that he had tested positive for the virus. Earlier, on Tuesday, Iranian MP Mahmoud Sadeghi and Iranian Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi also confirmed that they had tested positive for COVID-19. Besides, Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19), IRNA news agency informed on Thursday.

On February 19, the Iranian Health Ministry reported first cases of novel coronavirus in the country in the city of Qom. According to official data, there are 245 cases of COVID-19 in Iran, with at least 26 recorded deaths.

On December 31, 2019, Chinese health officials reported a cluster of cases of acute respiratory illness in Wuhan, an economic and industrial metropolis with a population of 11 million, to the World Health Organization. The virus — now named COVID-19 (2019-nCoV), otherwise known as the novel coronavirus — was identified on January 7, 2020.

Apart from China, 56 countries and territories, including Russia, have reported confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest data, the overall number of people who contracted the novel coronavirus in China has exceeded 83,380, as many as 2,850 people have died and over 36,620 have recovered.

The World Health Organization has declared the situation a public health emergency of international concern, describing it as an epidemic with multiple locations.