Tokyo: The total number of Indians infected on board cruise ship Diamond Princess rose to 12 on Sunday with four more Indian crew members contracting COVID-19.
Those who are not found to be infected would be facilitated to travel back home once all the results are declared, the Indian embassy said on Sunday.
Passengers showing no signs of the deadly disease started deboarding the ship, Diamond Princess, after the quarantine period ended last week.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that over 1,000 passengers and crew will remain on board the ship after the disembarkations.
On Saturday, around 100 more passengers, who were in close contact with the infected people on board, were allowed the deboard the ship.
The Indian embassy said that the Japanese authorities have confirmed that samples from all passengers on board the ship collected for the test are being processed.
"All results expected by 25/26 Feb. Indian nationals on the ship, who would not test positive, will be facilitated by Indian Embassy soon after," the embassy tweeted.
The embassy had on Saturday said that Indians, who are still on board the ship, will be tested for the virus infection along with others after all the healthy passengers have disembarked.
A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, were among the 3,711 people, on board the ship when it docked at the Yokohama port, near Tokyo, on February 3.
It was quarantined after a passenger who disembarked last month in Hong Kong was found to be the carrier of the disease.
The ship has the largest cluster of COVID-19 cases outside China. Two former passengers of the ship have also died.
According to an AP report on Saturday, with the latest disembarkation, a 14-day quarantine is expected to start for those still on board as many of them did not undergo isolation because they were needed to keep the ship running.
Ninety-seven more people died in China due to coronavirus, taking the death toll to 2,442, while the confirmed cases rose to 76,936, officials said on Sunday.
A team of WHO experts also visited the worst-affected Wuhan city in Hubei province to conduct a detailed probe about the virus which reportedly originated from a seafood market in the city in December last year.
Indian Airports to screen passengers from 4 more countries
Aviation regulator DGCA has ordered screening of passengers from four more countries -- Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, as part of efforts to prevent spreading of coronavirus.
Now, fliers from as many as 10 countries would be screened at Indian airports.
Already, passengers travelling in flights from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Singapore are being screened at Indian airports in the wake of the Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID 19).
Cases of the virus infection have been reported in many countries, including India.
In a communication issued on Sunday, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it has been decided to expand universal screening of all passengers arriving in flights from Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.
The screening must be ensured immediately "once they step out of the specific locations at all the airports and getting the self-declaration form filled by the passengers as per the instructions of the health and family welfare ministry, it said.
In this regard, the watchdog said all airlines should make in-flight announcement in flights coming from these countries.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai airport on Saturday said it has started screening passengers arriving from Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Nepal for coronavirus in compliance with the central government's directives.
The Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), which is the joint venture company managing and operating the city airport, said it is already screening passengers from China, Honk Kong, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea.
The death toll due to the epidemic climbed to 2,345 with 109 more fatalities reported, while the confirmed cases of infection rose to 76,288, according to Chinese health officials.
S Korea on virus 'high' alert
South Korea went on high alert Sunday following a sharp jump in coronavirus cases, and Italy and Iran took their own drastic containment steps as an epidemic that has killed nearly 2,500 people in China continued a relentless global expansion.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) also warned that Africa's poor health systems left it vulnerable to the COVID-19 disease, which spilled out of China to more than 25 countries.
South Korea is raising the nation's alert to its "highest" level, President Moon Jae-in said on Sunday after the number of infections nearly tripled over the weekend to 556.
Led by an outbreak cluster in a religious sect in the southern city of Daegu, South Korea now has the most infections outside of China apart from the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan, which has seen more than 600.
South Korea reported 123 new cases and two deaths on Sunday, taking the countrywide toll of fatalities to four.
Italy, Iran steps up containment measures
Elsewhere, Italy and Iran began introducing the sort of containment measures previously seen only in China, which has put tens of millions of people under quarantine lockdown in the epicentre province of Hubei.
More than 50,000 people in about a dozen northern Italian towns near the business hub of Milan were urged by authorities to stay home, while shops and schools were shuttered.
With dozens of cases, Italy on Friday became the first European country to report one of its nationals had died from the virus, followed by a second death on Saturday. Both were elderly.
The government was weighing "extraordinary measures" to halt further infections, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said.
Iran ordered the closure of schools, universities and cultural centres across 14 provinces from Sunday following five deaths in the Islamic Republic -- the most outside East Asia and the first in the Middle East.
Iran's outbreak surfaced Wednesday and quickly grew to 28 confirmed infections.
Iraq on Thursday clamped down on travel to and from Iran, and flag carrier Kuwait Airways has suspended flights to the country. Although Egypt is the only African country with a confirmed case, the WHO warned that the continent was vulnerable, urging more African Union cooperation.
The US State Department said anxiety was being stoked by a coordinated effort by thousands of Russia-linked social media accounts spreading conspiracy theories that the outbreak was a US-orchestrated ploy to damage China, officials said. Russia's foreign ministry dismissed the allegation as "deliberately false".
(With inputs from agencies.)
