Internet hospitals in South China's Guangdong province have offered consultants and related medical services to more than 3,000 fever patients and suspected novel coronavirus cases since January 23.

According to a statement released by Guangdong Provincial Health Commission on Thursday, a total of 57 hospitals in the province have immediately offered online consultants and medical services to fever patients and suspected novel coronavirus patients after the commission issued a notice a week ago, requiring the hospitals to introduce internet plus and big data to help prevent and control the outbreak of the deadly disease in the country's most populous province.

"The online hospitals allow fever patients to consult doctors in front of their computers at home and they could determine by themselves whether they have caught the novel coronavirus pneumonia or not via the diagnosis and data offered by their doctors from the internet hospitals," said the statement.

"That has helped reduced the number of times of patients going to hospitals for help reduces the risk of being infected by the novel coronavius pneumonia, and reduces the heavy pressure of hospitals' outpatient services as well," said the statement.

"The patients go to hospitals for further consultation and treatment, only when they think they might have caught the novel coronavirus pneumonia after analyzing the diagnosis and data given by the internet doctors," the statement said.

Meanwhile the commission requires internet hospitals in the entire province to access the internet medical service supervision platform of Guangdong, and in the process of providing medical consultants and services, upload the internet medical service data to the "supervision platform" for supervision, said the statement.

The commission has required all the internet hospitals to train enough doctors and ensure the online consultants and related medical services are available 24 hours a day.

More hospitals in the province will be required to open their online services in the weeks to come, the statement said.

The internet hospitals are expected to play an important role in preventing and fighting against the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in the country's most populous province in the weeks to come, the statement added.