A total of 15 cases of novel coronavirus have been confirmed at a hospital in South Korea, authorities said Thursday, including the country's first death of a patient with the virus.

China on Thursday touted a big drop in new cases of the coronavirus as a sign it has contained the epidemic, but fears grew abroad after two former passengers of a quarantined cruise ship died in Japan and a cluster of infections increased in South Korea.

U.S. scientists announced Wednesday they had created the first 3D atomic scale map of the part of the novel coronavirus that attaches to and infects human cells, a critical step toward developing vaccines and treatments.

Two people have died in Iran after testing positive on Wednesday for the new coronavirus, the health ministry said, in the Islamic republic's first cases of the disease.

They are also the first deaths from the COVID-19 virus in the Middle East and only the seventh and eighth outside China where the outbreak has killed more than 2,000 people.

New virus cases in China continued to fall Wednesday, with 1,749 more infections and 136 additional deaths as the top official in the outbreak's epicenter vowed to find and isolate every infected patient in the city by day's end.

Wednesday marks the final day of a door-to-door campaign in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus emerged, to root out anyone with symptoms whom authorities may have missed so far.

While much of the world is focused on the new coronavirus, Russia in recent days has seen a surge of interest in HIV testing, all thanks to a YouTube star.

Foreign firms are struggling to resume work in virus-hit China as they face disrupted supply chains, rising inventory and quarantine rules meant to contain the deadly epidemic, the EU chamber of commerce said Tuesday.

The death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak rose again on Tuesday but Chinese and international health officials sought to calm global nerves, citing a study showing most cases are mild and warning against excessive measures to contain the epidemic.

The new coronavirus that emerged in central China at the end of last year has now killed nearly 1,800 people and spread around the world.

The death toll from China's new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 1,770 after 105 more people died, the National Health Commission said Monday.