A British man has died after catching coronavirus while in quarantine on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health.

His death is the first UK fatality from the disease and brings the total number of passengers who have died from the outbreak on the cruise liner to six.

The man has not been identified and the Foreign Office said they are looking into the reports.

He is understood to be one of four Brits who had to remain in Japan after dozens more, who had tested negative for COVID-19, were evacuated to the UK following two weeks of quarantine on the infected ship.

Health Minister Jo Churchill has said she was aware a British man who had been on board the ship was ‘very poorly’.

She told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: ‘The Foreign Office are supporting the family of a British man who has been very poorly and was a passenger on board the Diamond Princess.

‘I haven’t had confirmation because obviously I’m on the telephone to you, but I was aware there was a gentleman who was very, very poorly, and I’m sure like me your thoughts and sympathies go out to his family at this time.’

The Diamond Princess has been stranded near Tokyo since the beginning of  February, after a passenger who got off the ship in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.

Since then it has seen more than 700 coronavirus infections and earlier today it was reported that a female passenger in her 70s became the fifth person to die from the ship’s outbreak.

The cruise liner was carrying 3,700 people, including 78 Britons, when it was quarantined at a port in Yokohama.

Thirty-two British passengers arrived at Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral, Merseyside over the weekend after being evacuated by the foreign office.

Four of these tested positive for coronavirus strain COVID-19 upon landing,  it was confirmed.

British couple David and Sally Abel documented the Diamond Cruise quarantine on a near-daily basis with posts on Facebook and YouTube.

Neither of them is understood to be the Brit who has now died, Sky News reports.

In the UK, 19 cases have now been confirmed, including one each in Northern Ireland and Wales.

Two new patients in England contracted the virus while in Iran, while the patients in Wales and Northern Ireland contracted the disease in northern Italy, the epicentre of Europe’s outbreak.

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