South Korea reported another large jump in new virus cases Monday a day after the the president called for "unprecedented, powerful" steps to combat the outbreak that is increasingly confounding attempts to stop the spread.

The 161 new cases bring South Korea's total to 763 cases, and two more deaths raise its toll to seven.

Iran's confirmed death toll from the new coronavirus rose to eight on Sunday, the highest outside China, sending neighboring countries scrambling to contain the outbreak.

Jordan on Sunday said it would bar citizens from China, Iran and South Korea from entering the kingdom in a bid to prevent the deadly coronavirus outbreak spreading.

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 coronavirus epidemic that has killed over 2,400 people is communist China's "largest public health emergency" since its founding in 1949, said President Xi Jinping on Sunday.

Nearly 200 Israeli pupils were ordered to begin a two-week quarantine from Sunday after having come into contact with South Korean tourists who contracted the coronavirus, the education ministry said.

The number of coronavirus cases in Italy has risen to over 100, the president of the northern Lombardy region said on Sunday. 

Iran on Saturday reported one more death among 10 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of deaths in the Islamic republic to five and infections to 28.

A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 77,000 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.

Two more people died from the new coronavirus in Iran, infections nearly doubled in South Korea and clusters surfaced in Chinese prisons on Friday, rekindling concerns about an epidemic that has killed more than 2,200 people in China.