About 2,300 medical workers from across the Chinese mainland arrived in Hubei province on Tuesday to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of the pneumonia disease caused by a novel coronavirus, local authorities said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, 21 medical teams comprised of 2,287 medical workers from Gansu and Guangdong provinces, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Shanghai, and other provinces arrived at Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak.

A total of 6,097 medical employees from 26 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, as well as three military hospitals have been sent to the province as of Wednesday. They have been dispatched to designated hospitals to join the medical work.

About 1,500 medical workers among the total have been sent to other cities in the province besides Wuhan that are also plagued by the contagion, including Huanggang, Ezhou, Xiaogan and Xianning, to alleviate the severe shortage of local medical personnel.

Eight provinces and municipalities including Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hunan and Shanghai have arranged for a second batch of medical teams consisting of 1,137 personnel to aid Hubei.