China on Sunday announced a significant drop in coronavirus cases, as the WHO team scrambled to assist Beijing in containing the spread of the virus that has claimed 1,665 lives so far.

Two more Indians on board a quarantined cruise ship off Japan have tested positive for the novel coronavirus even as India assured that it will provide all possible assistance to its nationals on the ship to return home after they test negative in the final coronavirus tests that would begin on Monday, the Indian Embassy said on Sunday.

Sri Lankan Navy has arrested at least 11 India fishermen for allegedly poaching in the country's territorial waters.

 India will soon send a consignment of medical supplies to China to assist Beijing in combating the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Indian Ambassador Vikram Misri said on Sunday as he expressed solidarity with the people of China in their fight against the epidemic.

Thirty-one people were killed in air strikes on Yemen Saturday, the United Nations said, the victims of an apparent Saudi-led retaliation after Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed to have shot down one of its jets.

The death toll from China's coronavirus epidemic has climbed to 1,665 after 142 more people died, mostly in the worst-hit Hubei Province, and the confirmed cases jumped to 68,500, officials said on Sunday, as top WHO experts scramble to assist Beijing contain the virus spread.

Several antiviral drugs to treat the novel coronavirus outbreak in China that has claimed over 1,500 lives are under clinical trials and some have shown fairly good efficacy, a Chinese official said on Saturday.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Saturday cast China as a rising threat to world order saying the world's most populous nation steals Western know-how, intimidates smaller neighbours and seeks an "advantage by any means and at any cost."