Beijing: Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, one of the eight whistle- blowers who warned other medics of the Coronavirus ( nCoV) but were reprimanded by the police, died of the disease on Thursday, official media reported.
He was the first to report about the virus way back in December last year when it first emerged in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Chinau2019s central Hubei province.
He dropped a bombshell in his medical school alumni group on the Chinese messaging app WeChat that seven patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with a SARS- like illness and quarantined in his hospital.
Li explained that, according to a test he saw, the illness was a Coronavirus u2014 a large family of viruses that includes severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS) which led to 800 deaths in China and the world in 2003.
Li told his friends to warn their loved ones privately.
But within hours, screenshots of his messages had gone viral, without his name being blurred. Agencies Doc who first warned about nCoV dies A doctor walks past patients diagnosed with Coronavirus at a temporary hospital in Wuhan. PIC/ PTI 564 Total no. of fatalities in China so far
