SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s president said on Sunday that he was putting his country on its highest alert for infectious diseases, ordering officials to take “unprecedented, powerful” steps to fight a soaring viral outbreak, while a continent away in Italy, authorities battled to contain Europe's first major outbreak of the virus.

China also reported hundreds more infections for a total of about 77,000, and Iran raised its death toll from the virus to eight — the highest toll outside of China. While the number of patients worldwide is increasing, some virus clusters have shown no link to China and experts are struggling to trace where those clusters started.

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