Wuhan, Mar 28 (IANS): Domestic passenger flights will resume operations in China's Hubei province, the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, except in the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport, according to country's civil aviation regulator.

Flight operations will resume on March 29, Xinhua news agency quoted the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) as saying in a statement on Friday.

Staring on April 8, the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport will restore operations for domestic passenger flights, the CAAC said.

Meanwhile, cargo flights will resume operations from March 29 in all airports in Hubei rovince.

Aviation companies are encouraged to add extra domestic and international cargo flights to stabilize the supply chain, according to the CAAC.

The announcement come on the same day when Wuhan, Hubei's provincial capital where the virus originated last December, had its COVID-19 risk evaluation downgraded from "high risk" to "medium risk".

Liu Dongru, deputy head of Hubei province's health commission, said earlier on Friday that coronavirus risk evaluation for five districts of Xinzhou, Huangpi, Jiangxia, Caidian and Dongxihu have been further lowered to "low risk".

He also declared the transmission of the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan has been "basically blocked".

Since March 18, Wuhan has only reported one new confirmed case.

Friday's announcement comes after authorities in the provincial capital on Tuesday announced that travel curbs will be lifted in Wuhan from April 8 after over two months of lockdown.

On January 23, Wuhan declared unprecedented traffic restrictions, including suspending the city's public transport and all outbound flights and trains, in an attempt to contain the epidemic within its territory.

Similar restrictions were soon introduced in other areas in Hubei.

As of Saturday, there were 81,946 confirmed cases in China and 3,299 deaths

Although the virus emerged in China, it now has fewer cases than the US and fewer deaths than Italy and Spain.