HONG KONG — Li Wenliang, one of the eight doctors who tried to alert authorities about the coronavirus when it was first emerging in Wuhan only to be reprimanded by local police, has died, Chinese media reported.

Li, 34, an ophthalmologist at the Wuhan Central Hospital, was found to be infected with coronavirus on Saturday and died on Thursday (Feb 6).

“We are very sorry to hear the loss of any frontline worker who is committed to care for patients… we should celebrate his life and mourn his death with his colleagues,” Michael Ryan, director of the World Health Organization's health emergencies programme, said during a briefing on Thursday.

On Dec 30, Li warned his medical school classmates in an online chat group that a Sars-like illness had stricken several patients in a Wuhan hospital and that all of them were quarantined in the emergency department.

The same day that the doctor shared the messages, local health authorities announced that the city had confirmed 27 cases of a new type of virus, most of them linked to a seafood market.

However, Li, along with seven other doctors who shared information about the outbreak, was summoned to the local police and forced to sign a letter promising to make no further disclosures concerning the disease. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST