Coronavirus spreads in Italy, toll rises, leaders resist border closure

Milan: The Italian Prime Minister has defended his government's handling of an expanding coronavirus cluster as fresh cases are confirmed in three new European countries and health ministers downplay potential border closures as "disproportionate and ineffective".

The death toll on Tuesday climbed to 10 and the number of confirmed cases rose by more than 100 to hit 322, according to an update from the country's civil protection department.

The vast majority of cases are in the Lombardy region, in the country's north.

Walter Ricciardi of the World Health Organisation stressed that for every 100 cases, about 80 people get better alone, 15 have serious but manageable problems, five are very serious and about three die.

Giuseppe Conte sought to ease growing community concern and calm nervous financial markets by defending his government's response to the outbreak and predicting an imminent stabilisation in diagnosed patients.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has defended his country's handling of the virus outbreak.Credit: AP

"Obviously I can't say I'm not worried because I don't want anyone to think we're underestimating this emergency," he said before a meeting with experts from the World Health Organisation.

"But we trust that with the measures we've implemented there will be a containing effect in the coming days."

The virus has now spread to Austria, Switzerland and Croatia, however, the number of cases is low and authorities are moving quickly to quarantine infected people and trace their movements in Italy.

In other developments overnight Australian time:

• International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound said any decision to cancel the Tokyo Olympics should not be taken until May;
• Several schools in Britain shut after students who had recently returned from skiing trips in Italy started displaying flu-like symptoms;
• A tourist hotel in Tenerife in the Canary Islands was placed in quarantine after an Italian doctor and his wife staying there both tested positive coronavirus;
• The head of Iran's counter-coronavirus taskforce tested positive for the virus himself, a day after he sweated and coughed through a press conference in Tehran convened to downplay the threat of the outbreak;
• Bruce Aylward, the head of the WHO's taskforce in China, praised Beijing for its response to the outbreak and suggested other countries need to be willing to mount a similar mass mobilisation of resources.

Health ministers from Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Croatia met on Tuesday afternoon and agreed to take "a common position on the emergency in order to face the present global challenge". Critically, the ministers ruled out closing borders.

"Closing borders would be a disproportionate and ineffective measure at this time," they said in a statement.

A health worker screens the temperature of an airline passenger arriving from Italy at Debrecen International Airport in Hungary.Credit: Bloomberg

But in a sign the joint efforts of health officials, police and the military to restrict the cluster to the north of Italy is struggling, new cases were confirmed in Sicily, in the far south of the country, and Tuscany, between Rome and Milan, on Tuesday.

Three of the four new deaths were in the Lombardy region, which has been the worst affected. Italy has thrown up quarantine borders around a dozen towns in the region, which is less than an hour's drive from the financial hub of Milan and its 1.4 million residents. The fourth death was in Veneto.

More shops and businesses closed on Tuesday as some of the new cases were detected in people who had recently visited the city.

A woman wearing a face mask checks her phone in a subway carriage in Milan, Italy.Credit: AP

Austria, which has been threatening to introduce border checks with Italy unless the spread is brought under control, also recorded its first two cases since the outbreak that first started in China's Wuhan province in early January.

The couple, both aged 24 from a town near Bergamo in Lombardy, drove on Friday to the mountainous Austrian province of Tyrol, which borders Italy, a doctor treating them said.

"They are both very cooperative and in a good overall condition," the doctor, Guenter Weiss, told a news conference.

Britain stepped up its response on Tuesday by updating its travel advice to encourage anyone who had been in northern Italy to self-quarantine for two weeks after returning home.

Trinity Catholic College, a school in northern England, will remain closed for the rest of the week after some students and teachers who had been to Italy for a ski trip fell ill.

"During this time, the school will be able to conduct a precautionary deep clean of the school buildings," the school said in a statement.