The Tibet autonomous region has been making steady progress in its war against the COVID-19 epidemic, officials of the region's Health Commission said on Wednesday.

Tibet was the first area of the country to be declared free of the infection. Its sole coronavirus patient recovered and was discharged from the hospital on Feb 12 after being treated for 18 days.

The region had no infections of medical personnel. As of Tuesday, it had reported zero new infections for 56 consecutive days.

Zhang Gengyun, deputy director of the commission, said medical professionals will perform health checks in the region's airports and at train stations and highway checkpoints to reduce the risks of inadvertently importing a new coronavirus case and triggering a new outbreak.

"Medics check the body temperatures of visitors entering the region, ask about where they've been in their travels and register them," Zhang said.

"The region has handled 470,000 new visitors, more than 1.3 million people have received medical screenings and 16,735 people required epidemiological investigation."