The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) is to issue new recommendations to hospitals and nursing homes to stop the spread of COVID-19.

It comes after the country's worst day for deaths and new cases.

The virus claimed a further 17 lives on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 71 - while 325 new cases were confirmed.

There are now 3,235 diagnosed cases in the country, one-quarter of which involve healthcare workers.

Senior health officials are becoming increasingly worried about clusters emerging in nursing homes.

The NPHET has made several recommendations to try to combat the spread of the virus among at-risk groups.

It is to focus contact tracing on suspect cases within prioritised groups.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) is to give updated guidance to GPs and contact tracing teams.

Contact tracing is to involve the period from 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms, given the risk of asymptomatic transmission.

In response to infections in long-term residential care settings  - such as nursing homes - NPHET says it will work with the HSE to identify "a number of measures" which can be taken to strengthen support to staff and providers of nursing home care.

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer at the Department of Health, said; "The measures that we have recommended today should significantly enhance the preparedness and response to cases and outbreaks in nursing homes and other residential settings.

"As we have said from the beginning our efforts must be focused on protecting the most vulnerable to COVID-19 and these recommendations announced today seek to achieve this."

Tadgh Daly from Nursing Homes Ireland told Newstalk Breakfast the quick testing of staff also needs to be prioritised.

"If you have 10, 12% of your staff out at any given time, it's posing huge, huge challenges on an already over-stretched sector".

There are now more than 846,000 cases of the coronavirus worldwide.

Some 41,000 people have died - more than 12,000 of those are in Italy.

The second-worst hit country is Spain, which has reported more than 8,000 fatalities.

Meanwhile in the US, the number of people to have died has passed 3,500.