South Korea has reported the lowest number of new coronavirus cases since infection rates peaked four weeks ago, fuelling hope Asia's worst outbreak outside China may be abating.

The country recorded 64 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 8,961 with 111 deaths.

But health officials warn against complacency, saying the country still faces a long war against the infection.

Europe is currently at the centre of the pandemic.

Italy reported 651 new deaths on Sunday, bringing the total there to 5,476, while Spain added another 462 deaths in the past 24 hours for a total of 2,182.

In New York, the city mayor warned of a worsening outbreak, with damage accelerated by shortages of key medical supplies.

And the expectation that the battle against the virus will be a long one was reinforced by news from Japan that its prime minister has admitted for the first time that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games could be postponed.

How different is South Korea's approach?

Nearly 20,000 people are tested every day for coronavirus in South Korea, more people per capita than anywhere else in the world.

The country has created a network of public and private laboratories and provides dozens of drive-through centres where people with symptoms can check their health status.

Is S Korea's rapid testing the key to coronavirus?

'At a love motel': Are S Korea virus alerts too revealing?

South Korea developed its approach after an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) in 2015, when 36 people died in the country, which had the second-largest number of Mers cases after Saudi Arabia.

Mers forced the country to reassess its approach to infectious diseases and its Centres for Disease Control set up a special department to prepare for the worst, a move which appears to have paid off.

Laws on managing and publicly sharing information on patients with infectious diseases changed significantly after Mers and could be seen in action this year when the government used phone alerts to tell people if they were in the vicinity of a patient.

Credit: Aljazeera