WUHAN — Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan has called for efforts to strengthen patient treatment in areas other than Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Central China's Hubei province.

Sun, who is leading a central government team guiding the epidemic control work in Hubei, learned about patient treatment in cities including Xiaogan, Huanggang and Jingzhou at a video conference on Feb 26.

The treatment of patients has become a pressing task at present despite the positive trend in the epidemic control in Hubei, said Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Sun stressed that community-level epidemic prevention and control in urban and rural areas and patient treatment remain the two key aspects, calling for efforts to increase support for areas with inadequate medical resources.

The latest version of coronavirus patient diagnosis and treatment scheme should be implemented to standardize treatment methods in order to increase the recovery rate and reduce the mortality rate.

Sun also stressed the coordination between epidemic control and spring agricultural production.