Iran on Friday announced 144 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, bringing the official number of fatalities to 2,378 in one of the world's worst-hit countries.

"In the past 24 hours, we've had 2,926 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections across the country," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in a televised news conference.

"This brings the overall confirmed cases to at least 32,332," he added, noting that 11,133 of those hospitalised so far have recovered.