Passengers line up to board a cable car in southwest China's Chongqing, March 18, 2020. (TANG YI / XINHUA)

WUHAN - No new infections of the novel coronavirus were reported on Wednesday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, marking a notable first in the city's months-long battle with the virus.

The Health Commission of Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital, said the virus' death toll climbed by eight in the province, but the total confirmed cases in Wuhan and Hubei remained at 50,005 and 67,800 on Wednesday.

There was no increase in the province's number of suspected cases, which fell to zero on Tuesday, in another indication that large-scale transmissions have been suppressed at the epidemic ground zero.

The National Health Commission said there were 34 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, all of which were imported

Previously, the central Chinese province had reported single-digit increases of new infections, all of which were from Wuhan, for a week in a row since last Wednesday. A month ago, the figure was several thousand a day.

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The province also saw 795 patients discharged from hospital after recovery on Wednesday, reducing its caseload of hospitalized patients to 6,636, including 1,809 in severe condition and 465 in critical condition. 

No new domestically transmitted cases were reported on the Chinese mainland Wednesday, according to data from the National Health Commission Thursday.

The commission said it received reports of 34 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland Wednesday, all of which were imported.

Among them, 21 were reported in Beijing, nine in Guangdong province, two in Shanghai, and one in Heilongjiang and Zhejiang provinces respectively. By the end of Wednesday, 189 imported cases had been reported, said the commission.

Also on Wednesday, eight deaths and 23 new suspected cases were reported on the mainland. A total of 819 people were discharged from hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 308 to 2,314.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 80,928 by the end of Wednesday, including 7,263 patients who were still being treated, 70,420 patients who had been discharged after recovery, and 3,245 people who died of the disease.

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The commission said that 105 people were still suspected of being infected with the virus.

The commission added that 9,144 close contacts were still under medical observation. On Wednesday, 1,032 people were released from medical observation.  By the end of Wednesday, 192 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 15 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 108 in Taiwan including one death.  

A total of 95 patients in Hong Kong, 10 in Macao and 22 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospital after recovery.

The clearing of new infections in Wuhan came earlier than previously predicted, but it is still too early to let down guard, said Zhang Boli, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and one of the leading experts advising on the epidemic fight in Hubei.

Arduous work still lies ahead as China strengthens defense against imported cases from abroad, treats thousands of patients still in serious or critical condition and rehabilitate those discharged from hospitals, Zhang said.

China began to see a drop in the number of COVID-19 patients on Feb 18, after the number of recovered patients surged and new cases declined. By late February, the virus had withdrawn from most territories on the Chinese mainland, with only single-digit daily increases of infections in areas outside Wuhan.

On March 6, the epidemic epicenter Wuhan slashed the daily increase of confirmed cases to below 100, down from a peak of more than 14,000 in early February. Bruce Aylward, who led the China-WHO joint mission on COVID-19, said the outbreak in China had come down "faster than would have been expected."

On March 11, the daily increase of locally transmitted infections dropped to single digits for the first time on the Chinese mainland. The virus has so far caused a total of 80,928 infections and 3,245 fatalities, defying earlier predictions by foreign researchers of a more extensive national outbreak.