Serbia will review its coronavirus death toll, President Aleksandar Vucic announced Thursday, after a leading epidemiologist said the real figures were three times higher than official statistics.

Serbia has recorded some 750 deaths and over 33,000 infections since March, according to official figures.

But Predrag Kon from the state-appointed crisis response team said his own analysis from March to June showed that the data was “not precise enough”.

“In short, there were three times more deaths not only than what was officially announced, but also what was reported”, Kon told regional Newsmax TV.

“We will revise every death, to see what it is, something we have never done,” the president told a news conference.

“It will be done by doctors, a lot of people, experts”, he said.

Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar denounced the epidemiologist's claims as unfounded.

In June, local investigative outlet BIRN said the government was playing down the figures.

Scepticism about the official COVID-19 data was one of the issues that sparked massive and violent protests in early July, and some 3,000 Serbian doctors signed the petition asking for numbers to be reviewed.

At the start of the epidemic, the Balkan country responded with state of emergency, lockdowns and weekend-long curfews, but relaxed the measures weeks before the parliamentary elections held in June, after which the infection rate immediately shot up significantly.