Doctors look at a CT scan of a lung at a hospital in Xiaogan, China, on February 20. AFP/Getty Images

The World Health Organization has seen a steady decline in novel coronavirus cases in China since the end of January, including in Hubei province and the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.

“We questioned these numbers while we were in China, we scrutinized this data and we believe that this decline is real,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

She said they believe this because of the extent of case finding, contact tracing and testing among other surveillance systems.

Van Kerkhove did not say whether the virus has peaked in China.

“We’ve seen the comprehensive measures that China has taken and … we believe that that has had an impact on changing the natural trajectory of the outbreak in China,” she said. “We believe that this is possible in other countries.”

For countries other than China – including Italy, Iran and Korea – that means having an aggressive approach to looking for contacts, social distancing, hand washing, respiratory etiquette and readying systems, she said.