Three patients, all in Wenzhou, have been cured and discharged from hospital in East China's Zhejiang as of Tuesday, Jan 29, according to a press briefing from the local authority.

The city, which witnessed a homecoming tide of 33,000 people from Wuhan, so far reported 114 confirmed novel coronavirus cases, according to vice-mayor Tang Xiaoshu. The city has assembled a team of 37 medical experts to make diagnosis and treat patients, Tang said.

Statistics show a total of 180,000 people from Wenzhou either do business or study in Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus was first reported.

Sun Liming, deputy director of the provincial health commission, said she expects the numbers of newly-confirmed cases in the province to "gradually decrease over the next seven to 10 days, with the deepening of continuous efforts of disease prevention and control within the province."

Zhejiang reported 123 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus as of midnight on January 28, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the province to 296.

Among them, 19 were in Hangzhou, 54 in Wenzhou, 18 in Taizhou and 3 in Ningbo.