WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. health official has described China's efforts to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak as "unprecedented."

"The degree with which they (Chinese) have shut down travel through major cities encompassing about 50 million people, including the entire 11-million-person city of Wuhan, is really unprecedented," Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told U.S. media CNBC on Tuesday.

The decision to do that was "their desire to make sure that the virus does not spread further throughout China, but also outside of China into other countries," said Fauci, a member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force.

Such a move might be slowing things down and it needs a few more days to determine whether the decreasing trend of new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection is real, Fauci said.

Chinese health authority said Thursday it received reports of 394 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection on Wednesday, two days after China's daily new cases dropped to 1,886 on Monday, falling under 2,000 for the first time since Jan. 31.