TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Six people have died of alcohol poisoning in northern Iran after consuming bootleg booze, state media in the Islamic republic reported Sunday.

Iran banned the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Ever since, smuggled and unregulated alcohol has proliferated on the black market, with methanol often added to drinks as a cheaper alternative to ethanol.

Official news agency IRNA said four people have died in the northern province of Gilan.

“Out of 20 people poisoned by either ethanol or methanol, four between the ages of 22 and 40 died due to severe poisoning,” IRNA quoted Mohammad Taghi Ashoubi, president of the Gilan University of Medical Sciences, as saying.

Others were hospitalised, he added, including six in serious condition.

In a similar incident, two people died in the neighbouring Mazandaran province and three are hospitalised, IRNA said.

In September last year, four people were sentenced to death for selling contaminated alcohol that killed 17 people and sent dozens more to hospital several months earlier.

At the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, at least 210 Iranians died after drinking bootleg alcohol, falsely believing it to be a remedy for the virus.

Only members of Iran’s Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities are exempt from the alcohol ban. Foreigners are required to respect it.