Tehran, Nov 1 (IANS): Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced the extension of restrictive measures to 71 cities until November 14 as the country has witnessed an unabated increase in the number of new coronavirus cases.

On October 3, the Iranian health authorities imposed shut-down of major educational and cultural activities in capital Tehran after a resurgence of infections, reports Xinhua news agency.

They also reintroduced strict compulsory use of face masks and asked people to avoid unnecessary outings.

Rouhani announced the new measures on Saturday during a meeting of the national headquarters for managing and fighting the pandemic.

The President noted that the Mealth Mnistry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, will carry out a plan to detect the patients and to analyze data as per the spread of disease.

He urged for public contribution to the implementation of health protocols and mandates by the health authorities in dealing with the pandemic.

Masoud Mardani, a member of national coronavirus taskforce, said that protective measures in high-risk areas in Iran are expected to produce positive results within the next few weeks, Financial Tribune daily reported on Saturday.

"We are expecting to witness a drop in hospital visits within two weeks and a drop in the death rate in three to four weeks," Mardani was quoted as saying.

Iran has so far reported 612,772 coronavirus cases, with 34,846 fatalities.

Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said that currently the risk of infection is high in 27, out of the 31 Iranian provinces.