Chinese doctor who first warned about coronavirus outbreak dies
Beijing, Feb 6: Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, one of the eight whistle-blowers who warned other medics of the coronavirus outbreak but were reprimanded by the police, died of the epidemic on Thursday, official media reported.
Li, a 34-year-old doctor who tried to warn other medics of the epidemic, died of coronavirus on Thursday in Wuhan, the state-run Global Times 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 China's central Hubei province.
He dropped a bombshell in his medical school alumni group on the popular 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 had seen, the illness was a coronavirus a large family of viruses that includes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which led to 800 death 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.
"When I saw them circulating online, I realised that it was out of my control and I would probably be punished," Li was quoted as saying CNN recently.
Soon after he posted the message, Li was accused of rumour-mongering by the Wuhan police.
He was one of several medics targeted by the police for trying to blow the whistle on the deadly virus in the early weeks of the outbreak.
Overall 564 people have died in China due to the virus and 28,018 confirmed cases have been reported from 31 provincial-level regions, the National Health Commission reported on Thursday.
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Woman's decomposed body found at rented flat in Bengaluru
Bengaluru (PTI): The body of a 34-year-old woman was found in a decomposed condition at her rented flat in Bengaluru, police said on Tuesday.
The deceased was identified as Pooja Dutta, a native of Dhanbad in Jharkhand, who was employed with a private company here, they said.
The incident in Adugodi came to light on Monday after neighbours alerted police about a foul smell emanating from her flat, police added.
Police said a team reached the spot, broke open the door and found Dutta's body in a nude and decomposed state, lying in a pool of blood. Preliminary suspicion is that the death may have occurred two to three days earlier, they said.
According to police, no death note was recovered from the spot, though torn papers were found scattered inside the house, prompting suspicion that she may have died by suicide after locking the door from inside.
The body has been sent for post-mortem examination to ascertain the exact cause of death. Once the autopsy report is received, it will be confirmed if it was a suicide or a murder, a senior police officer said, adding that all angles are being probed.
According to the landlady, Dutta had been living in the rented flat for the past three years and was last seen on April 23 when she went out to buy groceries.
The Adugodi police have registered a case of unnatural death, and further investigation is underway.
