(Yicai Global) March 17 -- Medical professionals who were sent to Central China's Hubei province during the height of the Covid-19 epidemic have started to prepare to go back home as the number of new cases in the early epicenter of the outbreak has sharply declined over the past two weeks.

Some 3,675 staff members from 41 teams across China, including the city of Shanghai, as well as northwestern Gansu, southern Guangdong, and Hainan provinces, are already leaving the regional capital of Wuhan today, The Paper reported. 

Since March 11, Hubei province has been adding less than 10 new Covid-19 cases every day. Meanwhile, the epidemic has rapidly spread abroad in regions and countries including Europe, Iran, and South Korea.

Some 42,000 dispatched medical workers have been fighting the epidemic in Central Hubei province from Jan. 24 to March 8, according to data from the National Health Commission. Two-thirds of these people are women. None of them had contracted the virus by March 8, it added.

Editor: Emmi Laine