Pope Francis has cancelled official engagements for a third straight day as he continued to battle an apparent cold.

The 83-year-old’s illness comes amid a coronavirus outbreak in Italy, which has already seen an estimated 888 cases – the worst-hit country in Europe.

Vatican officials refused to say whether the pontiff had been tested for the virus, which is fast spreading across the globe, but his illness is assumed to be a cold after he was coughing and blowing his nose during Ash Wednesday Mass.

Pope Francis, who lost part of a lung to a respiratory illness as a young man, has never cancelled so many official audiences or events in his seven-year papacy.

On Thursday, he cancelled a trip across Rome to celebrate Mass, and on Friday he pulled out of a meeting about an artificial intelligence conference.

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A spokesperson said he was working from his residence at the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel and was receiving people in private.

The Vatican has not revealed the nature of Pope Francis’s illness, saying only he has a “slight indisposition”.

Italy’s leaders have been alarmed at the coronavirus outbreak, mostly in the north of the country, which has killed at least 21 people. In Rome, it has struck three people, all of whom recovered.

The Pope was seen coughing and blowing his nose during the Ash Wednesday service (AFP via Getty Images)

Football authority bosses have postponed five Serie A matches this weekend, because of fears of spreading the disease. Several towns cancelled their marathons and half-marathons.

Meanwhile, the governor of Veneto, one of the regions worst hit by the virus, has apologised for criticising China and saying Chinese people “eat live mice”.

A man wears a mask in St Peter’s Square during Pope Francis’s weekly audience on Wednesday (AP)

Luca Zaia had pinned the blame on China for the flare-up in Italy, saying that unlike Italians, the Chinese did not have good standards of hygiene.

“The hygiene that our people, the Venetians and the Italian citizens have, the cultural training we have, is that of taking a shower, of washing, of washing one’s hands often,” Mr Zaia said in television interview.

“It is a cultural fact that China has paid a big price for this epidemic because we have seen them all eat mice live or things like that.”

In response, the Chinese embassy in Rome posted on Facebook: “At a crucial time like this, when China and Italy stand side-by-side to deal with the epidemic, an Italian politician has spared no slander about the Chinese people. This is a gratuitous attack that leaves us stunned.”

Mr Zaia told Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday: ”My words came out badly, I agree. If anyone was offended, I am sorry. I wanted to say that when it comes to food health and safety, controls change from country to country.”

Scientists suspect the virus was spread from wild animals to humans in December in a market in Wuhan after the earliest infections were found in people who been at a a wildlife market. The country’s leaders have introduced a formal ban on trade in animals taken from the wild for consumption, in a major challenge to the widespread practice.