A Chinese doctor hailed as a hero for trying to warn others about coronavirus in the early days of the outbreak has died from the virus, Chinese state media say.
Dr Li Wenliang, thought to be 34, tried to send a message to fellow medics about the outbreak at the end of December. Three days later police paid him a visit and told him to stop. He returned to work and caught the virus from a patient. He had been in hospital for at least three weeks.
He posted his story from his hospital bed last month on social media site Weibo.
“Hello everyone, this is Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital,” the post begins.
It was a stunning insight into the botched response by local authorities in Wuhan in the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak.
Dr Li was working at the centre of the outbreak in December when he noticed seven cases of a virus that he thought looked like Sars – the virus that led to a global epidemic in 2003. The cases were thought to come from the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan and the patients were in quarantine in his hospital.
On 30 December he sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them about the outbreak and advising they wear protective clothing to avoid infection.
What Dr Li didn’t know then was that the disease that had been discovered was an entirely new coronavirus. READ MORE: