Not less than seven people died in Iran after consuming bootleg alcohol, state media said on Monday, bringing the death toll from alcohol poisoning to 11 in two days in a country where such drinks are banned.
The latest deaths occurred in the northern province of Mazandaran and included six men and a woman, the official news agency IRNA reported, citing judicial authorities. It had previously reported the deaths of two people from alcoholic poisoning in Mazandaran.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency said 57 people suffering from “ethanol or methanol” intoxication had been hospitalised since Sunday in the northern province. IRNA later revised the number down to 53 people.
On Sunday, the news agency said four people died of alcohol poisoning in neighbouring Gilan province after 20 were hospitalised following bootleg booze consumption.
Iran banned the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Smuggled and bootleg alcohol has ever since proliferated on the Iranian black market, with methanol often added to drinks as a cheaper alternative to ethanol.
In September last year, Iran sentenced four people to death over selling poisonous alcohol that killed at least 17 people months earlier.