A doctor at a hospital in the western Japanese prefecture of Wakayama has tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The prefectural government has asked the hospital to stop accepting new patients. It will ask all inpatients to undergo testing and stay at the hospital.
Japan has confirmed its first death of a person infected with the new coronavirus in the country. Health ministry officials say the Japanese woman in her 80s was a resident of Kanagawa Prefecture, just south Tokyo.
Her son-in-law, who is a taxi driver, was also found to be infected with the virus on Thursday. Health ministry officials are trying to track the routes of the infections.
The Japanese government has launched a 136-million-dollar package to fight the coronavirus outbreak. It includes funds for the development of a vaccine and treatment for the illness caused by the virus.
The emergency plan was approved on Thursday at a task force meeting attended by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his full Cabinet.
All 199 evacuees, who had been quarantined in accommodation facilities after they flew back to Japan from Wuhan, Hubei Province late last month, have tested negative for the new coronavirus.
They underwent checks following two weeks of quarantine after returning to Japan on board the second chartered plane on January 30.
Japan's health ministry says an elderly woman who died on Thursday was later confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus.
The woman in her 80s, living in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, visited a hospital on January 22 as she was suffering from fatigue. Her health conditions had been monitored until she was diagnosed with pneumonia and admitted to the hospital on February 1.
Japan's health ministry says a woman in her 80s living in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, has died after contracting the new coronavirus.
It is the first confirmed case of infection in Japan that resulted in death.
Tokyo police have arrested singer-songwriter, Noriyuki Makihara, on suspicion of possessing stimulant drugs two years ago.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department suspects Makihara possessed 0.083 grams of powder that contained stimulant drugs in a condominium in Tokyo's Minato ward in April 2018.
Passengers on the cruise ship Westerdam may start disembarking on Friday at a port in southern Cambodia after being denied entry at several ports elsewhere for fear of coronavirus infection.
The Westerdam arrived off the port of Sihanoukville on Thursday morning, following Cambodia's decision to allow the ship to dock in the country.
A taxi driver in his 70s in Tokyo has tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Health authorities say the man told them he drove passengers believed to be Chinese.
Authorities in Wakayama Prefecture, in western Japan, say a male doctor in his 50s living there has been confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus.
Aside from 218 cases from the cruise ship, 31 people have tested positive in Japan, including 12 people who were evacuated on chartered flights arranged by the government.
Nissan Motor's operating profit shrank sharply during the nine months to December, mainly due to sluggish sales in the US and Europe.
Company officials say the figure was down 82.7 percent to 54.3 billion yen, or nearly 500 million dollars.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's heckling during a Diet debate has angered opposition parties, leading to the cancellation of budget deliberations in the Lower House Budget Committee scheduled on Thursday.
Abe jeered a lawmaker of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party during the deliberations of the fiscal 2020 budget at the committee on Wednesday, saying, "Those questions were meaningless."
A taxi driver in Tokyo has tested positive for the new coronavirus. Japan's health ministry is investigating how he was infected.
Japan's health ministry says another 44 cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed on the cruise ship Diamond Princess.
The people include one crew member. Twenty-nine of them are Japanese.