Iran has temporarily freed about 85,000 people from jail, including political prisoners, in response to the coronavirus epidemic, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday.

Iran has reported over 16,000 coronavirus cases and close to 1,000 deaths from the virus in one of the worst national outbreaks outside China, where the pandemic originated.

"So far, some 85,000 prisoners have been released... Also in the jails we have taken precautionary measures to confront the outbreak," said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.