Another 26 people in Kashgar Prefecture, southwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, have tested positive for the coronavirus, local health authorities told a media briefing on Monday evening. 

All 26, asymptomatic, are from the prefecture's Shufu County, where the very first asymptomatic case of the latest regional outbreak was detected last weekend.

On October 24, a 17-year-old female villager from Shufu County was confirmed as an asymptomatic carrier of the virus during routine nucleic acid testing.

The positive test led to mass testing across the prefecture and over 130 people tested positive the following day, all related to a local factory where the parents of the female villager work.

The 26 newly found virus carriers have all come into close contact with asymptomatic people detected earlier, officials added. 

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As of Monday afternoon, a total of 164 people had tested positive in Kashgar's Shufu County, but none currently have symptoms.

Testing of the county's 245,200 residents was completed on Monday afternoon with the help of 16 testing teams consisting of 2,938 medical staff from elsewhere in Xinjiang. 

Testing in other parts of the prefecture is still underway and is expected to conclude on Tuesday.

As of 4:00 p.m. on Monday, over 4.47 million people in Kashgar Prefecture had been swabbed and so far more than 2.13 million samples have tested negative.