The first patients arrived Monday at a 1,000-bed hospital built in 10 days as part of China's sweeping efforts to fight a new virus that is causing global alarm.

Huoshenshan Hospital and a second 1,500-bed facility due to open this week were built by construction crews who are working around the clock in Wuhan, the central city where the outbreak was first detected in December. Some 50 million people are barred from leaving Wuhan and surrounding cities.

Cruise lines worldwide will deny boarding to passengers and crew who have recently travelled to China, the global Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) said Monday, as fears grow over the deadly new coronavirus.

Thirty six people aboard an evacuation flight from China that landed in France on Sunday showed symptoms of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 360 people, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said.

China's death toll from a new coronavirus jumped above 360 on Monday to surpass the number of fatalities of its SARS crisis two decades ago, with dozens of people dying in the epicentre's quarantined ground-zero.

China's army on Sunday was given control of a nearly-finished field hospital that will treat patients at the epicenter of a deadly virus epidemic that has severely strained medical facilities.

China imposed a lockdown Sunday on a major city far away from the epicenter of a coronavirus epidemic, as its death toll from the disease soared to 304 and the first foreign fatality was reported in the Philippines. 

Britain on Saturday said it was temporarily withdrawing some staff and their families from its diplomatic sites in China, as Beijing struggles to contain the nationwide new coronavirus epidemic.

The Australian government on Saturday said it would bar non-citizens arriving from mainland China from entering the country under new measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.

China faced deepening isolation over its coronavirus epidemic on Saturday as the death toll soared to 259, with the United States leading a growing list of nations to impose extraordinary Chinese travel bans.

Cyprus said on Friday it was treating its first suspected case of coronavirus after a man arrived from China showing signs of the illness.

A statement by the Mediterranean island's Ministry of Health said: "A Chinese citizen residing in Cyprus who had visited China in the past few days presented symptoms similar to that of the coronavirus."