KABUL: Afghanistan's public health ministry confirmed on Sunday that there had been three suspected cases of coronavirus in the country and that blood samples had been sent to the capital, Kabul, for analysis and diagnosis.
The suspected coronavirus cases were from Herat province, Tolo News reported, quoting the ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar, who said the patients has "recently returned from Qom city in Iran".
The test results from the blood samples sent to Kabul would be available soon, Mayar added.
A day prior, Iran had ordered schools, universities, and cultural centres be closed after a coronavirus outbreak killed five people in the Islamic republic. The latest death was reported from among 10 new cases, authorities had said.
Coronavirus — official known as COVID-19 — has killed 2,345 people in China, the epicentre of the epidemic, since December 2019 and 17 elsewhere in the world.
The outbreak in the country had first surfaced on Wednesday, when authorities said it claimed the lives of two elderly people in Qom, a holy city south of the capital, Tehran, making them the first confirmed deaths in the Middle East.
"We have 10 new confirmed cases of COVID-19," Iran's health ministry spokesperson Kianoush Jahanpour had told state television on Saturday. "One of the new cases has unfortunately passed away."
The latest cases take to 28 the total number of confirmed infections in Iran.