Hubei province has accelerated its verification process of cases of the novel coronavirus within a wider effort to release more resources to care for patients confirmed to have contracted the disease, Jiang Chaoliang, Party chief of the province, said on Thursday night.

Jiang told a daily news conference in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei and the outbreak center of theepidemic, that the number of sample tests conducted in hospitals across the province increased to around 4,000 per day from 200 a few days before.

Jiang said local hospitals are speeding up the verification of suspected cases to release

medical resources away from people with regular flu or ordinary fever.

With limited medical supplies available, the province has encouraged local medical enterprises to restart production, according to Hubei Vice-Governor Cao Guangjing.

"Now, two enterprises producing protective suits and two producing N95 masks have begun production," he said. He added that process channels had been opened up to ensure the transport of the supplies.

About 20,000 productive suits will be produced within two or three days in Hubei, Cao added.