CHONGQING, March 15 (Xinhua) - Southwest China's Chongqing municipality on Sunday became the latest in a crop of provincial-level regions that have reduced the number of COVID-19 patients to zero.

A staff member of a hot pot restaurant delivers takeout food in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, March 13, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

After recovery, the last COVID-19 patient in Chongqing, a 52-year-old man, was discharged from a hospital in Changshou District around 11 a.m., according to the municipality's health commission.

Chongqing has registered a total of 576 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, including six deaths. It has not reported any new infections for 19 consecutive days.

On Saturday afternoon, central China's Hunan Province also saw its last COVID-19 patient discharged from hospital.

The female patient surnamed Liu received a bouquet and took a group photo with doctors and nurses after walking out of a hospital in Changsha, capital of Hunan.

Both Chongqing and Hunan neighbor the hardest-hit province of Hubei and have faced arduous tasks of preventing a widespread transmission in local communities.

According to initial counting by Xinhua, 11 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland are clear of the novel coronavirus infections after their last COVID-19 patients had been discharged.

They include Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Yunnan, Fujian, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Anhui, apart from the latest additions of Hunan and Chongqing.