A southern Chinese city has disinfected 1.3 million subway tickets amid a spate of measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

All one-way subway tickets from 63 subway stations in Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, have been collected and disinfected since Jan. 27 and 400,000 new tickets were made to fill the vacancies, said the subway operator.

The plastic cards were soaked in disinfectant for 30 minutes and then counted and repackaged after air drying.

The city will continue to recycle and disinfect subway tickets and the subway operator has also called on passengers to use more mobile payment platforms or their own prepaid subway cards when taking the subway.

Other measures to reduce potential infection include temperature checks at the subway stations and regularly disinfecting subway facilities.