The death toll from the deadly Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has leapt to 170, the Chinese government said on Thursday, with 1,737 new infections confirmed.

Thirty-seven of the 38 new deaths came in hard-hit Hubei province, the epicentre of a contagion that is causing mounting global fear.

The 38 new deaths marked the biggest single-day jump yet and come as a massive containment effort is underway that has effectively locked down tens of millions of people in Hubei.

Most of the latest reported infections also occurred in Hubei, which tallied 1,032.

The total number of confirmed cases has jumped to 7,711 even as repatriation flights for foreign nationals continued.

So far, 12,167 suspected cases have been detected – which means they have symptoms, but it has not yet been confirmed whether or not they have contracted the coronavirus – and about 82,000 people have been in contact with patients and remain under medical observation.

Meanwhile, there have been no deaths recorded outside of China.

Meanwhile, a Japanese government-chartered flight with 210 Japanese nationals on board arrived Thursday in Tokyo from Wuhan as part of the operation to evacuate hundreds of its citizens.

The charter flight landed early in the day at Haneda Airport and is the same plane that brought 206 citizens home on Wednesday. Among those, three of them have tested positive for the coronavirus and two of the three were asymptomatic, said the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on Thursday.

Vietnam’s National Administration of Tourism announced the country on Wednesday temporarily stopped receiving tourists from areas in China with confirmed outbreaks and was restricting the movements of Chinese tourists and those who have been to outbreak areas who are already in the country.

The Japanese government is considering sending a third plane to repatriate the remaining citizens who requested to be evacuated from the country. A total of 650 Japanese have made the request.

Outside of China, Hong Kong and Macau, other countries with confirmed cases include Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Canada, the United States, United Arab Emirates, Australia (two new cases reported Thursday), France and Germany. Finland reported its first case Wednesday. Several cases in Taiwan were also included in the national count.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday warned all governments to “take action” over the deadly SARS-like virus.

The WHO has called an urgent meeting for Thursday over whether the viral epidemic should be declared a global health emergency — a designation that could lead to increased international coordination.

Airlines around the world are already either suspending or paring back services in and out of China, following cases of human-to-human transmission outside the country.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter that the organisation “deeply regrets” what he called a “human error” in WHO reports last week that referred to the global risk of the outbreak as “moderate” instead of “high”.

The Coronavirus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.

Like SARS, it can be passed among people through the respiratory tract.

The Coronavirus is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from the common cold to acute respiratory syndromes, but the virus in China is a novel strain and not seen before.

The symptoms of infection include fever, cough and breathing problems.