A militia member uses a digital thermometer to take a driver's temperature at a checkpoint at a highway toll gate in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. (Photo: AP)

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Thirty provincial-level regions reporting cases of novel coronavirus in China have activated first-level emergency response to contain the spread of the viral pneumonia.

On Saturday, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Hainan joined other regions to launch their top-level public health emergency response to the epidemic.

By the end of Saturday, 1,975 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), including 324 in critical condition, had been reported in the provincial-level regions except Tibet Autonomous Region.

The pneumonia situation had resulted in 56 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.