The Ministry of Civil Affairs said Friday it will step up the monitoring and reporting of suspected novel coronavirus infections by using hundreds of thousands of residential communities and other grassroots autonomous organizations.

In a media release, the ministry said community-level epidemic prevention is the most basic move in the nationwide efforts to control the spread of the outbreak. As of last September, China has about 108,000 communities in cities and 540,000 in rural areas.

The ministry said it will bolster efforts to employ such self-governing community authorities in tracking suspected cases, and to make sure people coming back for family reunions and visits stay home in quarantine for 14 days, which was recommended by top health experts.

Communities are also encouraged to establish volunteer groups to "offer convenience" for those people under home quarantine, and assist health authorities to monitor those removed from the suspected list, the ministry said.

The ministry required community authorities to report suspected cases on a daily basis, and warned against untruthful statistics.

Efforts should be made to bolster residents' knowledge about the virus using community-based LED screens and broadcasters, to improve the disinfection of health rooms and other facilities in the community and increase support for impoverished members in the community, the ministry said.

Starting Jan 21, the ministry has alerted grassroots communities about potential outbreaks and ordered them not to hold large-scale banquets and other Chinese New Year festivities.

It also mobilized grassroots resident committees to register those from outside the community, to raise awareness of disease control and report suspected infections.