The death toll in Iran from the new coronavirus climbed for another consecutive day, killing 63 more people in the past 24 hours as the government on Wednesday raised the nationwide death toll to 354, AP reports.

Iran's health ministry said the deaths are among some 9,000 confirmed cases in Iran, where the virus has spread to all of the country's provinces.

The Islamic Republic has one of the world's worst death tolls outside of China, the epicentre of the outbreak. Outside of Iran, only Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon have recorded deaths from the virus in the Middle East.