Six people have tested positive in Italy for coronavirus, the northern Lombardy region said on Friday, in the first known cases of local transmission of the potentially deadly illness in the country.
Officials told residents from three small towns some 60km southeast of Italy's financial capital Milan to stay at home as doctors tested hundreds of people who might have come into contact with the six coronavirus sufferers.
None of the six was believed to have visited China, which is the epicentre of the virus, but the first infected patient, a 38-year-old man now in intensive care, fell ill after meeting a friend who had recently been to China.
That man has since tested negative to the contagious disease, but doctors were investigating whether he carried the virus and subsequently recovered without showing any symptoms, said regional councillor Giulio Gallera.
The pregnant wife of the initial patient and one of his friends were also infected, along with three other people who were admitted to hospital overnight suffering from pneumonia-like symptoms.
"We have called on the residents of Codogno, Castiglione d'Adda and Casalpusterlengo to stay at home as a precaution," Gallera told a news conference.