China's top health authority has on Monday instructed all medical institutions at grassroots levels to test patients who have shown symptoms of fever for the novel coronavirus.

Local health institutions that can't carry out nucleic acid tests should team up with other institutions or third-party testing agencies, according to a notice released on the website of the National Health Commission.

The newly released notice is aimed at improving grassroots medical institutions' ability in early detection and warning, as well as standardizing the operations of their fever clinics, according to the commission.

Fever clinics at hospitals have played a significant role in diagnosing and isolating sporadic new COVID-19 infections as local transmission of the virus has been promptly taken under control in China, according to health officials.

The document also requires grassroots medical institutions to report cases where diagnoses are unclear but the risk of having contracted infectious illnesses cannot be ruled out. Such patients should be isolated immediately and their discharging will need authorization.

Patients displaying severe or other COVID-19 symptoms will be transferred to hospitals that can provide adequate treatment in a timely manner, it added.