The novel coronavirus claimed another 11 lives in Iran, bringing the country's overall toll to 54, according to official figures released on Sunday that showed the virus was spreading more rapidly.

A coughing Pope Francis told pilgrims gathered for the traditional Sunday blessing that he is canceling his participation at a week-long spiritual retreat in the Roman countryside because of a cold.

It is the first time in his seven-year papacy that he has missed the spiritual exercises that he initiated early in his pontificate to mark the start of each Lenten season. Such retreats are typical Jesuits, an order to which he belongs.

China reported a fresh spike in coronavirus infections on Sunday, as President Donald Trump urged calm after the first death on US soil and Australia registered its first fatality.

International experts are questioning the scale of the new coronavirus epidemic in Iran, where the official death toll is second only to China and risks creating a regional epicenter of contagion.

Mexico's health ministry said the country has confirmed three cases of the coronavirus, becoming the second Latin American nation reached by the global outbreak.

China on Saturday reported 47 more deaths from the new coronavirus, raising the death toll in the country to 2,835.

After facing sanctions and the risk of war amid tensions with the United States, Iran's Shiite theocracy now has an enemy in the new coronavirus that infiltrated its leadership in plain view of state-controlled media and despite repeated denials of any looming threat.

The outbreak of the new virus in Iran has been dramatic — the head of Iran's task force to stop the illness, known as COVID-19, was seen coughing, sweating and wheezing across televised interviews before acknowledging he was infected. Then, days later, a visibly pale official sat only meters (feet) away from President Hassan Rouhani and other top leaders before she too reportedly came down with the virus.

South Korea reported its biggest surge in new coronavirus cases on Saturday as concerns grew of a possible epidemic in the United States and the World Health Organization raised its risk alert to its highest level.

People in Japan's rural north have been urged to stay at home this weekend in a desperate effort to contain the coronavirus outbreak as the country reported two more deaths linked to the illness.

A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 83,000 people globally. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.