The novel coronavirus has claimed three more lives in Iran, state media reported, taking the country’s overall death toll from the outbreak to 15 — the highest outside China. Iran has been scrambling to contain COVID-19 since Wednesday when it announced its first two deaths in Qom, a centre for Islamic studies and pilgrims that attracts scholars from abroad. Two of the dead were elderly women in the central province of Markazi and the other was a patient in the northern province of Alborz, state news agency IRNA said.