Austria suspended train services to and from Italy for around four hours on Sunday evening to test two passengers for the coronavirus.

A train carrying around 300 passengers from Venice to Munich was stopped on the Italian side of the Brenner pass before being allowed to continue its journey after the two passengers tested negative.

The Austrian government released a travel warning for affected places in Lombardy and Veneto, following a meeting of the government’s coronavirus taskforce that included the chancellor, Sebastian Kurz.

“As far as the borders and cross-border traffic are concerned, we will proceed as follows: we will further tighten warning systems with our neighbours; [and] we will immediately order a stop in the event of suspected cases, as happened last night,” Kurz said on Monday.

On Monday, an Alitalia flight from Rome was “held” in Mauritius as coronavirus cases in Italy continued to rise to over 200  and the seventh death in the country was confirmed.

Around 70 people from the epicentre of the outbreak in northern Italy were prevented from disembarking, authorities said.

Mauritian authorities had told passengers from the regions of Lombardy and Veneto that they either had to go into quarantine in Mauritius or return to Italy without getting off the plane, Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera reported.

Other passengers were allowed to disembark after a medical screening.

The Italian foreign ministry confirmed it was in contact with Alitalia and with the Italian Embassy in South Africa in order to provide assistance to Italian nationals on the flight.

Meanwhile, passengers who had travelled by bus from Milan to Lyon, in south-east France, on Monday were stranded on board after the driver was hospitalised with symptoms similar to those caused by the coronavirus.

Police installed a security cordon around the bus at Lyon’s Perrache station and ordered the passengers to remain aboard the vehicle, according to a spokeswoman for the Lyon area’s public security department.

Health ministers from Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia and Croatia are due to attend a meeting in Rome on Tuesday to discuss containing the virus.

Italy’s government is urging its neighbours not to impose border controls, arguing they would be ineffective.