A Chinese doctor who was silenced by police for warning about the coronavirus outbreak has been diagnosed with the disease.

Li Wenliang, 34, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, sent a message in a chat group on 30 December to fellow doctors warning them of an outbreak.

He had noticed seven cases of a virus he thought looked like Sars, the virus which sparked a global epidemic in 2003.

The patients he treated were quarantined in his hospital and thought to have come from the seafood market in Wuhan where the outbreak is believed to have originated.

But four days after his warning he was called to a police station to sign a letter in which he was accused of “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order”.

Read more: yahoo