ROME • Italy's coronavirus infections spread south yesterday to Tuscany and Sicily, as the civil protection agency reported a surge in the number of infected people and Rome convened emergency talks.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has blamed poor management in a hospital in the country's north for the outbreak, which has caused seven deaths in Italy so far and infected the largest number of people in Europe.
Tuscany reported its first two cases, including one in the tourist destination of Florence, while Sicily marked one - a tourist from the worst-hit Lombardy region, where at least 212 people have tested positive.
Health ministers from neighbouring countries as well as the European Union's health commissioner were to meet in Rome as the number of confirmed infections jumped to more than 280, with over 50 new cases reported since Monday.
Hundreds of people were confined to their rooms at a Tenerife hotel after an Italian tourist was hospitalised with a suspected case of the coronavirus, health officials in Spain's Canary Islands said.
"We are checking people who had contact with the patient, including the people in the hotel," a spokesman for the Canary Islands' health department said.
While no neighbouring country has closed its borders with Italy, several governments have announced additional measures for travellers arriving from Italy, in particular from the two northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.
The main centre of infection in Italy has been in Lombardy's Codogno, a town with about 15,000 residents around 60km to the south of Milan.
The 38-year-old man dubbed "Patient One" by the Italian media was admitted to hospital last Wednesday in Codogno.
Codogno and several others in northern Italy have been put under isolation to stem the spread of the virus. Schools have also been closed.
Several upcoming matches in the Italian Serie A and the Europa League will be played behind closed doors. Production of the latest Mission: Impossible film starring Tom Cruise in Venice has also been stopped.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
