The Chinese mainland had confirmed a total of 5,974 infection cases of the novel coronavirus by Tuesday midnight, including 1,459 new confirmations, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday morning.

The death toll from the pneumonia caused by the coronavirus had reached 132 across the mainland. Twenty-six died on Tuesday.

The number of patients with serious symptoms was 1,239 on the mainland on Tuesday.

A total of 103 patients on the mainland had recovered and been released from the hospital by the end of Tuesday.

In addition to the confirmed cases, another 9,239 people on the mainland were highly likely to have been infected with the coronavirus, provisionally called 2019-nCoV, by the end of the day.

A total of 3,248 mainland residents were suspected of being infected on Tuesday, including the first suspected case in Tibet, the only provincial-level region on the mainland still free from the highly contagious disease.

There had been eight confirmed infections in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, seven in the Macao SAR and eight in Taiwan, the commission said.

Health authorities across the mainland have traced 65,537 people who had met face-to-face with infected people. A total of 59,990 of them are still under medical observation, according to the commission.

In Central China's Hubei province, where the epidemic has hit the hardest, 3,554 infection cases had been confirmed as of Tuesday, including 125 deaths, the provincial health commission said on Wednesday.

The number of confirmed infections in Hubei increased by 840 on Tuesday, and the death toll rose by 25 on the same day.