Beds are being placed at Wuhan International Convention and Exhibition Center. The center, along with Wuhan Parlor and Hongshan Stadium, are being transformed into cabin hospitals for people who test positive for the virus but show no severe symptoms. (ZHAN SONG / CHANGJIANG DAILY)

Wuhan, the city at the heart of the novel coronavirus outbreak, has been racing against time to convert existing venues into three new hospitals in a matter of days to help combat the fast-spreading epidemic, along with the new Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital.

As of Monday, the number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose to 13,522 in Hubei province, including 414 deaths. Wuhan alone has 6,384 confirmed cases and 313 fatalities.

As of Monday, the number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose to 13,522 in Hubei province, including 414 deaths. Wuhan alone has 6,384 confirmed cases and 313 fatalities

Ma Guoqiang, Party chief of Wuhan, said during a video conference on Monday night that local authorities should make every effort to transform the city's exhibition venues into cabin hospitals to increase isolation spaces and the number of hospital beds.

In response to the ongoing shortage of medical treatment resources, the city plans to convert its sports stadium and two convention centers into three mobile cabin hospitals to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus. Construction work on the three cabin hospitals began on Monday night.

With a total capacity of 3,400 beds, the three hospitals are designed to provide medical treatment for patients who test positive for the virus but show no severe symptoms. As soon as construction work is completed, medical staff will be dispatched to the hospitals.

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Wang Chen, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said that a cabin hospital is a mobile medical structure with multiple functions such as emergency treatment, surgical treatment and clinical examination.

The three new hospitals will enhance the city's ability to receive and treat patients, and the centralized isolation of all infection cases with mild systems will also avoid further cross infection and better coordinate the deployment of medical resources, he said.

Once a patient's symptoms worsen, he or she will be transferred in a timely manner to Jinyintan Hospital, one of the city's designated hospitals to admit patients infected with the new virus.

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With rapid construction underway, the hospital in Wuhan Parlor convention center, which is able to house 2,000 patients, was scheduled to be the first to become operational on Tuesday night.

Further, Wuhan has replicated Beijing's SARS treatment model from 2003 and started building two makeshift hospitals－Leishenshan Hospital and Huoshenshan Hospital－to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Huoshenshan Hospital, after a crew consisting of thousands of people scrambled to build the hospital in just 10 days, was finished on Sunday and began to receive its first 50 patients on Tuesday morning.

Staffed with 1,400 doctors, nurses and other personnel from the People's Liberation Army, the 33,940-square-meter hospital has 1,000 beds, including 30 intensive care units.

Construction on the other specialized hospital, Leishenshan, with 1,500 beds is due to be completed by Wednesday.