The seventh victim was a 62-year-old man on dialysis from the north-western region of Lombardy, authorities confirmed on Monday evening.
Hours earlier, three other men were confirmed to have died, all of them in their 80s and from Lombardy.
Following the deaths of one other man and two women at the weekend, the number of people in Italy who have died since contracting the coronavirus has risen to seven – six in Lombardy and one in Veneto.
At least three had other serious health problems when they contracted the virus, and all of them were elderly.
According to Italy’s health ministry, more than 4100 people across the country had been tested and a total of 229 cases had been confirmed by Monday evening, compared to just three on Friday morning.
Italy now has more confirmed cases of the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, than any other countries except China and South Korea.
But new infections are increasing at a slower rate, according to Angelo Borelli, the head of the civil protection agency that is managing Italy’s response to the recent outbreak.
“I think the numbers that we have registered in Italy and in the rest of the world have been confined to reasonable figures,” Borelli said, adding that the data does not indicate an impending pandemic.
By Monday the number of confirmed cases in Lombardy had reached 172, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
A smaller number of cases have also been confirmed in Veneto (33), Emilia-Romagna (18), Piedmont (3) and Lazio (3).
The cause of the outbreak remains a mystery as most of those infected had not recently travelled to China.
Authorities suspect several cases can be traced back to a 38-year-old man who has been officially identified as “patient one”.
Investigators are tracing his every move over the past few weeks in an attempt to find out where he contracted the virus.
It is believed he may have transmitted the infection to several other people in a hospital in Lombardy before he was diagnosed.
Authorities scrambled on Monday to enforce sweeping restrictions in a bid to prevent the virus from spreading further.
Eleven towns – 10 in Lombardy and one in Veneto – have been placed under lockdown, leaving around 50,000 residents shut away in their homes.
Schools have been ordered closed in Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, along with bars, restaurants, cinemas and museums.
The sudden outbreak has affected major cultural events across the country, including Milan Fashion Week and the famed Venice Carnevale, while four Serie A football matches were postponed.
Operas have also had to be cancelled at La Scala in Milan.
Meanwhile, a team of health experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control arrived in Italy on Monday to assist local authorities.
WHO said it was concerned over what it called the “rapid” increase in reported cases in Italy.
“However, it should also be noted that based on current data, in the majority of cases (4 out of every 5) people experience mild or no symptoms,” the organisation said in a statement.
While European officials are still urging residents to remain calm and Italian authorities believe that the spread has been contained, the fact that an outbreak of this scale has happened in a European Union member state will spark fears of further infection, given the continent’s relatively open borders.
As Stella Kyriakides, the European commissioner for health, tweeted on Sunday: “Viruses know no borders, it is only through global cooperation and coordination that we will be able to contain the spread of #COVID19.”
