The Information Office of the Fujian Provincial People's Government held a news conference on Feb 5 outlining progress on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, the third conference of its kind since the disease broke out.

Huang Ruxin, deputy director of the Fujian Provincial Health Commission, attended the conference. He gave a briefing on the latest situation in prevention and control, especially medical rescues of confirmed and suspected cases of the disease in the province.

Huang said that the provincial government had established a leading team for medical rescue against the disease. The team had issued an official masterplan on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus, and founded six groups to carry out the scheme.

The team also implemented a series of regulations on the management of a total of 1,132 medical institutions with fever clinics to guide them.

It organized a group of high-level medical experts to train medical workers on how to provide medical treatment for patients.

The team organized four medical expert groups, of which two were sent to the cities of Fuzhou and Putian.

Huang said the other two have been traveling around Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone and the cities of Xiamen, Quanzhou, Sanming, Putian, Longyan, Ningde and Nanping to guide local hospitals on coronavirus prevention and control.

According to Huang, the province currently has 74 county-level and 17 city-level designated hospitals for the fight against the outbreak, with 2,923 beds in total. The province has invested 33.5 million yuan ($4.8 million) to purchase negative pressure isolation ambulances for the hospitals.

As of midnight of Jan 4, a total of 205 cases had been reported in Fujian province, of whom 55 were in Fuzhou, 21 in Xiamen, 15 in Zhangzhou, 37 in Quanzhou, 11 in Sanming, 38 in Putian, 12 in Nanping, two in Longyan and 14 in Ningde.

Of the confirmed cases, 23 were in critical condition, and seven were released from hospital. Meanwhile, of the 5,270 traced close contacts, 1,077 had been released and 4,193 were still under medical supervision.