Hubei province, center of the novel coronavirus outbreak, reported 1,843 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 139 new fatalities on Saturday, bringing the two numbers up to 56,249 and 1,596 respectively, according to the province's health commission on Sunday.

Of the newly confirmed cases, 888 were clinically diagnosed as having the novel coronavirus pneumonia.

In Wuhan , the number of confirmed cases rose to 39,462 as of Saturday at midnight, followed by Xiaogan and Huanggang, with the number of confirmed cases in the two cities climbing to 3,201and 2,823 respectively.

The province also reported 849 new recovery cases on the same day. A total of 5,623 patients in the province have been released from the hospital after recovery by the end of Saturday.

A total of 39,447 people sickened by the virus are still under medical treatment in the province, including 8,439 people with serious symptoms and 1,957 are in critical condition.

Health authorities in the province have traced 183,183 people with close contact with patients, with 74,261 of them still under medical observation.