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Pope Francis has cancelled official audiences for a second day in succession after being taken ill.

The Vatican said the 83-year-old had celebrated morning Mass as usual and greeted participants at the end. He planned to keep his private meeting schedule as planned but decided to cancel official audiences.

It did not reveal what the pontiff is suffering from, but he was coughing and blowing his nose during Ash Wednesday Mass this week.

On Thursday, he cancelled a planned trip across the city to celebrate Mass with Rome priests.

His illness comes amid an outbreak of coronavirus which has infected 650 people in Italy and caused disruption across the north of the country. Rome has had three cases, but all three people have recovered.

On Thursday, Vatican officials refused to comment on whether Pope Francis has been tested for coronavirus, confirming only that he had missed a planned Mass for the start of Lent due to a slight illness.

“This morning, the pontiff did not go to St. John Lateran basilica for the Penitential Mass with Roman clergy,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement to The Telegraph. “Due to a light indisposition, he preferred to stay near [his Vatican residence] Santa Marta. Other duties are proceeding regularly.”

Bruni declined to respond to the question of whether or not the pontiff had been or would be tested for coronavirus.

Concern over the Pope’s well-being circulated on social media after he was seen coughing and blowing his nose during Ash Wednesday celebrations, in which he greeted people without wearing a mask.  

On Sunday, he mingled with 40 000 faithful in Bari, hugging and kissing people in the crowd after expressing support for those infected by coronavirus, the health workers treating them and the civil authorities responding to the worsening outbreak.

Pope Francis is missing a part of one lung. It was removed in his native Buenos Aires when he was in his early 20s after he suffered tuberculosis, according to biographer Austen Ivereigh.

He also suffers some leg pain due to sciatica, for which he undergoes regular physical therapy and which accounts for his occasional difficulty climbing steps.

But he is in generally good health and has been able to endure about four gruelling international trips each year since his election in 2013.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus is spreading in the Middle East, Europe and other parts of the world, as Brazil confirmed its first case in Latin America, while parts of China begin to lower their emergency response level as the number of new cases reported there continues to slow.

More deaths have been reported in Iran and Italy, while South Korea on Wednesday said an 11th person had died of the disease there. Globally, at least 80 000 people have been diagnosed with the illness.

The number of people infected with coronavirus in Italy has risen to 400, according to civil protection chief Angelo Borrelli, while the death toll remains at 12 people.

Italy is struggling to contain the virus in its northern region; several European countries have reported their first cases in recent days, many of which stemmed from people who had visited Italy. Attilio Fontana, president of Lombardia Region, has gone into self-isolation after one of his staff tested positive. He announced the news live on Facebook.

Qatar’s ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani ordered the evacuation of Qatari and Kuwaiti citizens from Iran due to the spreading of the coronavirus and its associated disease COVID-19, state news agency reported on Twitter.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran had no plans to quarantine any “cities and districts” in response to the country’s coronavirus outbreak. The virus had killed 19 people in Iran until now and infected 139 others, the health ministry announced.

– Nigeria yesterday announced the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa.

The case is an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria and returned from Milan earlier this week, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said in a statement on Twitter.

“The patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms, and is being managed at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos,” Ehanire said.

Italy has become a hotbed of infection in recent days, with the largest outbreak in Europe.

But the low number of cases across Africa, which has close economic ties with China, the epicentre of the deadly outbreak, has puzzled health specialists.

Prior to the case in Nigeria, there had been just two cases across the continent — in Egypt and Algeria.

The World Health Organisation warned earlier this week that African health systems were ill-equipped to respond should cases start to proliferate on the continent.

However, Ehanire said the government had been working to ensure an outbreak is “controlled and contained quickly”.

“I wish to assure all Nigerians that . . . we have been beefing up our preparedness capabilities since the first confirmation of cases in China,” he said. “We have already started working to identify all the contacts of the patient since he entered Nigeria.”

The outbreak, which began in December, has already killed more than 2 800 people and infected more than 78 000 in China.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the spread of the virus to countries with weaker health systems was “our biggest concern”.

“These patients require intensive care using equipment such as respiratory support machines that are, as you know, in short supply in many African countries and that’s a cause for concern,” he said.

Several African carriers including Kenya Airways have suspended flights to China, although the continent’s biggest airline Ethiopian Airlines has kept its China routes open. — AP