Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Friday that the US has no resolve to help Iran fight COVID-19 epidemic and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's is misleading world public opinion, Eurasia Diary reports citing IRNA.

The US claim of helping Iran to fight the deadly epidemic is psychological warfare when the US has put massive pressure on the Iranian people through its maximum pressure and blocked even entry of medicine and medical equipment, he said.

Islamic Republic of Iran has been in close contact with many countries to meet pharmaceutical and sanitary needs and combat the epidemic, Mousavi said, adding that 100,000 testing kits, surgery masks, artificial breathing apparatus have so far been provided by friendly countries and other aid shipment are on way to Iran.  

Countering coronavirus which has turned into a global epidemic requires global resolve and cooperation, not hypocritical moves made with political purposes and abusing sufferings of the people, Mousavi said.

Pompeo wrote in a tweet late on Friday that he is deeply concerned about spread of coronavirus in Iran and threat against public health in the country and its neighbors.

Coronavirus cases in Iran surged to 388 on Friday and eight more people died, bringing the number of deaths to 34, the highest outside of China, Iran's Health Ministry said.

In the past 24 hours, 143 new confirmed cases were detected across the country, with the average age of the infected standing at 50 years and the average age of the dead was over 60 years, the head of the Health Ministry's Media Center, Kianoush Jahanpour, said.