Japan on Friday vowed to step up testing and containment efforts for the coronavirus after suffering its first death and the confirmation of new cases, including a doctor and a taxi driver.
The biggest cluster of coronavirus infections outside China is on a cruise liner quarantined in a Japanese port, with 218 people on board confirmed as infected and taken off to the hospital.
On Friday, some of the ship's passengers were allowed to disembark - with priority given to older passengers who have been confined to windowless cabins - to complete their quarantine onshore.
A woman in her 80s living in Kanagawa prefecture, west of Tokyo, became Japan's first fatality from the virus, the health ministry said on Thursday.