Ms Xie, the 600th cured patient of COVID-19 at the east branch of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, poses for a photo with renowned Chinese epidemiologist Li Lanjuan and other doctors at the hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 16, 2020. The 600th patient confirmed of novel coronavirus infection has been discharged from the east branch of the hospital on Monday. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

As a majority of medics deployed to Hubei to fight COVID-19 have returned home, some of China's best medical experts stayed to save the lives of some 400 patients who remain critically ill.

Thousands of doctors and medical experts from several provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong Province remain in Wuhan. Five academicians including Zhang Boli, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and principal of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chen Wei, an academician at the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Qiao Jie, academician of the CAE and president of Peking University Third Hospital are among them, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. 

This is the final battle in the anti-virus war in Hubei, after the virus outbreak has been largely subdued. Already, some 20,000 medical personnel from across China who had been deployed to the city and Hubei have returned home. 

Wuhan has reported zero or near-zero new confirmed cases for weeks. Reducing the number of critical cases and deaths is now at the forefront of containing the outbreak. Wuhan reported six deaths and 1,128 cases with 397 patients in critical condition on Thursday. 

Wuhan frontline doctors hoped that experts from the National Health Commission's high-level expert team could save more patients in critical condition by combining traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.

Peng Zhiyong, director of the intensive care unit (ICU) at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, said that his hospital has been assigned two experts, and they helped devise individual treatment protocols for severe cases, which has seen significant success. "We haven't had any new severe patients for weeks, and in recent days some patients from other hospitals have transferred to my hospital. But treating patients in the ICU is still a challenge," Peng said. 

He said that most ICU patients had underlying conditions and have been hospitalized since January. The virus has resulted in irreversible damage to their lungs. 

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called for all-out efforts to treat patients in severe condition last week. Ying Yong, Party chief of Hubei, said the province should seize the important window formed when medical personnel from across China came to help Hubei to launch a final battle to treat severe patients, in an article published in Qiushi Journal on Wednesday, a flagship magazine of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

The recovery rate of patients in severe or critical condition have increased from 14 percent to 88 percent. Since March, between 100 and 150 patients are off the critical list daily, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday. In Wuhan alone, the number of severe cases has dropped from more than 9,000 at the peak to 397 on Thursday.