The international community can learn from China's experience in containing the novel coronavirus outbreak as the window for global containment closes, according to an editorial published on medical journal The Lancet on Friday.

China has taken up the most ambitious and aggressive disease containment effort following the outbreak, avoiding a great loss of life, it said.

The key of China's success lies in its strong administrative system that can mobilize in times of threat, with the population ready to follow strict public health procedures, the editorial said.

With the coronavirus epidemic seeing larger increases in cases outside China, many other countries have been responding with more containment measures, and China's experiences can be useful, it said.

"There are important lessons that presidents and prime ministers can learn from China's experience. The signs are that those lessons have not been learned," the editorial said.

High-income countries facing their own outbreaks must act more decisively and take more assertive infection control measures, including restricting public freedom temporarily, it warned.