Starting Wednesday night, a cabin hospital set up in a sports stadium in Wuchang district of Wuhan, Hubei province, began to receive patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

As of 7:30 am on Thursday, the mobile cabin hospital, finished in two days, began to provide medical treatment for the first 328 patients who tested positive for the virus but showed no severe symptoms.

Staffed with about 300 medical workers, the hospital will ultimately be capable of housing 800 patients from the city's Wuchang and Hongshan districts, as well as Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone. Every 50 patients will be taken care of by four doctors and 12 nurses.

The hospital will only admit patients aged between 18 and 65 with the ability to care for themselves and without other respiratory diseases, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases or mental diseases. The patients should also test negative for the flu virus at the same time.

The cabin hospital is equipped with medical inspection equipment for biochemical detection, radiological detection and etiology detection, which can monitor the situation of patients at any time. Once a patient's symptoms worsen, he or she will be transferred in a timely manner to the city’s designated hospitals for further treatment. Patients will be discharged from the cabin hospital after recovery and certain tests.

Through centralized isolation and treatment for patients with mild symptoms, the cabin hospital will avoid cross-infection in communities, as well as reduce the severity and fatality rate.

Wang Chen, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, told Xinhua News Agency that as all admitted patients at such cabin hospitals are confirmed novel coronavirus cases but tested negative for the flu virus, cross-infection between them in such hospitals is "not a prominent problem".