China reports 51 new coronavirus cases, mostly in Wuhan

China has reported 51 new coronavirus cases including 40 asymptomatic infections, majority of them in the contagion's first epicentre Wuhan, where over six million tests have been conducted in the last 10 days, health officials said on Monday. The country's National Health Commission (NHC) said that 11 new imported cases were reported on Sunday. While no new domestically-transmitted COVID-19 cases were reported in China on Sunday, 11 imported cases including 10 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and one in Sichuan province were reported, the NHC said in its daily report.

Out of the 40 new asymptomatic cases, 38 were reported in Wuhan, which is currently undergoing mass testing of its over 11.2 million people after a spike in the asymptomatic cases. Currently, 396 people with asymptomatic symptoms are under medical observation in China, including 326 in Wuhan, according to the health authority. Asymptomatic cases refer to the patients who have tested COVID-19 positive but develop no symptoms such as fever, cough or sore throat.

However, they pose a risk of spreading the disease to others. Wuhan, which earlier had over 50,000 cases between January and March, started a campaign on May 14 to expand the nucleic acid testing in order to better know the number of asymptomatic cases or people who show no clear symptoms despite carrying the virus. According to the latest figures released by the Wuhan municipal health commission, the city conducted more than 6 million nucleic acid tests between May 14 and 23.

On Saturday, the city carried out nearly 1.15 million tests, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. Nucleic acid testing is a molecular technique for screening blood donations to reduce the risk of transfusion transmitted infections. As of Sunday, a total of 82,985 confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in China with 4,634 fatalities, the NHC added.