Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday stressed speeding up the development of vaccine and medicine against pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus.

Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of a leading group of the CPC Central Committee on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, made the remarks while inspecting the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

He learned about the scientific research on epidemic prevention and control at the CDC and listened to opinions of medical experts.

Disease control institutions should race against time to discover the source and transmission mechanism of the novel coronavirus, research on vaccine development, and provide technological support for improving diagnosis and treatment, said Li.

Noting that the situation remains grim and complex, Li hoped the experts will strengthen research and evaluation on the trend of the epidemic, and discover new conditions of the disease to support targeted control of the pneumonia.

While demanding the scientific distribution and use of preventive resources, Li also required transparent report of epidemic information.

Stressing that the key to winning the battle against the epidemic is to improve the treatment effect and reduce the mortality, Li said vaccines and effective drugs are powerful remedies to the epidemic.

Li called for joint research efforts of multidisciplinary experts to expedite the development of easy testing kits, vaccines and effective drugs to fight the novel coronavirus.

He stressed reliance on scientific measures to overcome the epidemic.