Iran has temporarily freed about 85,000 prisoners in an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus, a judiciary spokesman in the country has said.

Gholamhossein Esmaili said: "Some 50% of those released are security-related prisoners... also in the jails we have taken precautionary measures to confront the outbreak."

Political prisoners are also among the inmates who have been released in the move.

Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said on 10 March he asked Tehran to temporarily free all political prisoners from its overcrowded and disease-ridden jails.

The request was aimed at helping to stem the spread of coronavirus in the Middle Eastern country.

The number of dead from the coronavirus has reached 853 in Iran, where a total of 14,991 people have been confirmed infected.

Iran has one of the worst national outbreaks outside China, where the disease originated from.

Mr Esmaili did not elaborate on when those released would have to return to jail.

Mr Rehman said earlier in March that Iranian prisoners have been infected with coronavirus.

Many Iranians have ignored calls by the health authorities to stay at home, but the country's holy Shi'ite Muslim sites and shrines in Tehran and Qom have been closed.

Officials in the country have blamed US sanctions, which were reimposed on Tehran after Washington abandoned in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, for hampering their efforts to fight the coronavirus.

Tehran has called on other countries to back its call for the lifting of US sanctions.

Iran said last week it had asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for $5 billion in emergency funding to combat the outbreak.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a rival of Iran, has put aside differences to lend support by sending two planes carrying 32 tonnes of medical supplies, including gloves and surgical masks.

Iran's clerical rulers have rejected locking down cities despite the rising death toll and the rate of new cases.

Other countries in the Middle East have imposed strict measures such as closing their borders and suspending flights.

Kuwait's health ministry on Tuesday reported seven new cases, all among Kuwaitis who had been to Britain to take the country's toll to 130.

Bahrain reported the Arab Gulf region's first death from the disease on Monday as the number of infections in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council crossed 1,000.

Oman, which lies across the Gulf from Iran, said anyone entering the sultanate as of Tuesday would be quarantined.

It had earlier imposed restrictions on entry to allow only Gulf Arab citizens.

MSN