The cured patients (2nd R to 3rd L) pose for photo with medical staff in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, Feb. 4, 2020. Five pneumonia patients infected with the novel coronavirus were cured and discharged from the hospital on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Li An)

New confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus pneumonia have seen their fifth consecutive day of decline in the Chinese mainland excluding Hubei Province as of Saturday, which experts attribute to effective preventive measures adopted by local governments.

The number of daily new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia in Chinese mainland excluding Central China's Hubei Province, where the epicenter city of Wuhan is located, dropped by 42.8 percent from 890 on Monday to 509 on Saturday, according to the National Health Commission (NHC) on Sunday.

"It shows that joint prevention and control mechanisms incorporating different regions in the country as well as strict management are taking effect," Mi Feng, spokesperson of the NHC, said on Sunday's media briefing.

It is good to see the nationwide decline of new confirmed cases outside Hubei, which is mainly attributed to the increased availability of nucleic acid kits and tighter preventive measures taken by the government, Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"But we cannot loosen our efforts in combating the virus. The overall situation of the coronavirus outbreak would become more positive if we could see a decline of more suspected cases," Yang said. 

Experts contacted by the Global Times said it is hard to predict when the peak of the virus outbreak would occur due to insufficient evidence and variable factors.  And the aggressive measures that the Chinese government has taken in fighting against the virus have been slowing down the outbreak. 

China has rolled out strict and diverse measures to prevent and control the pneumonia across the country, including building temporary makeshift hospitals in Wuhan. Local governments at all levels nationwide also adopt the community grid management system to better service the patients, locate residents suspected of the coronavirus infection and maintain public order.

More than 11,900 medical personnel were dispatched across the nation to Wuhan, the NHC announced on Sunday. The city has 14,982 confirmed cases as of the end of Saturday. 

However, the new death toll nationwide stands at 89 on Saturday, showing a continuous increase in the number of new deaths in a single day across the country. Among the 89, eight deaths in total were confirmed in places outside Hubei on Saturday, which also shows an increase in the single-day death toll outside Hubei for four consecutive days.  

Yang said the death toll remains high because of the lack of medicine to cure the coronavirus and infected patients can only get treatment based on their symptoms.

A total of 761 patients have been enrolled in a clinical trial of the Remdesivir in Wuhan, a drug developed by the US Gilead Sciences, which has shown fairly good antiviral activity against the 2019-nCoV.