The death toll in Italy from the coronavirus outbreak has risen from 233 to 366 in a single day.
The total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 7,375 from 5,883, Italian officials confirmed on Sunday.
Many of the latest deaths are in heavily virus-hit northern Italy.
Earlier today officials confirmed the death toll in Italy’s locked-down Lombardy region had jumped to 257 from 154 overnight.
The northern Italian region has borne the brunt of a nationwide contagion.
Italy has imposed a lockdown across the north of the country in a drastic attempt to try to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Some 16 million people - a quarter of Italy's population - will be affected by the strict measure which will stay in force until at least April 3.
People will only be able to leave the areas for emergency reasons and face fines and up to three months in jail for breaking the quarantine rules.
The areas under quarantine are: Lombardy, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Rimini, Pesaro, Urbino, Alessandria, Asti, Novara, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Vercelli, Padua, Treviso and Venice.
A total of 11 towns in Italy were already considered part of a 'red zone', meaning they are the worst-hit areas.
Italy’s southern regions have ordered those travelling from the north in eleventh-hour bids to flee the lockdown to stay home and self-isolate.
An estimated two million people have left the underdeveloped south in the past 15 years in search of work and hundreds of thousands of them have settled in the north.
“I speak to you as if you were my children, my brothers, my nephews and nieces: stop and go back,” said Michele Emiliano, the governor of Puglia.
“Get off at the first train station, do not catch planes ... turn your cars around, get off your buses. Do not bring the Lombard, Veneto and Emilia epidemic to Puglia.”
The Pope livestreamed his weekly Sunday prayer service, as the coronavirus spread to the Vatican.
The pontiff himself tested negative for the virus after falling unwell with a cough.
