More than 600 people on board Diamond Princess have tested positive for the virus, with dozens of them said to be in serious condition.
A third passenger has died after contracting the coronavirus on a cruise ship quarantined off the Japan coast while the number of infected Indians has risen to twelve.
More than 600 people on board Diamond Princess have tested positive for the virus, with dozens of them said to be in serious condition.
Japan's health ministry said on Sunday that the latest victim is a Japanese man in his 80s who was also suffering from other ailments.
He was removed from the ship, moored off the coast near Tokyo, and taken to a local hospital after testing positive for COVID-19, the health ministry said in a statement.
The man's cause of death was given as pneumonia, the statement added.
Earlier, two other elderly passengers, both Japanese and in their 80s, died on Thursday after contracting the virus.
The ship has been quarantined at the Yokohama port since February 3 after a passenger who disembarked last month in Hong Kong was found to be the carrier of the disease. A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, were among the 3,711 people, on board the ship when it docked at the port.
The Indian embassy in Japan has said that four more Indian crew members on board the cruise ship have tested positive for the coronavirus
The embassy said those who are not found to be infected would be facilitated to travel back home once all the results are declared.
With the fresh infections, the total number of Indians infected with the virus on the vessel rose to 12, the embassy said.
Around 100 more passengers were allowed the deboard the ship and more are likely to be allowed in coming days.
Passengers who showed no signs of the deadly disease were allowed to deboard the ship after the quarantine period ended last week.
Japanese authorities said that over 1,000 passengers and crew will remain on board the ship after the disembarkations.
The Indian embassy said that samples from all passengers on board the ship have been collected for the test and results are expected by February 26.
"All results expected by 25/26 Feb. Indian nationals on the ship, who would not test positive, will be facilitated by Indian Embassy soon after," it tweeted.
The ship, with over 600 confirmed cases, has the largest cluster of COVID-19 infected people outside China. Besides four deaths on board the ship, two former passengers of Diamond Princess have also died.
The death toll from the deadly virus in China has climbed to 2,442 and the number of infections hit almost 77,000 in the country.
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