A medical worker collects a throat swab from a man at a nucleic acid testing site in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on Aug 5, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has identified 26 new asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 as of Monday afternoon, a local health official said at a press conference.

The new cases were reported in Shufu County, south Xinjiang's Kashgar Prefecture, after a 17-year-old female villager from the prefecture's Shufu was confirmed as an asymptomatic carrier of the virus on Saturday during routine nucleic acid testing.