New coronavirus infected 40 staff in single Wuhan hospital: study

Forty health care workers were infected with the novel coronavirus by patients at a single Wuhan hospital in January, a new study has found, underscoring the risks to those at the frontlines of the growing epidemic.

One patient who was admitted to the surgical department was presumed to have infected 10 health care workers, according to the paper that was authored by doctors at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Friday.

Seventeen patients who were hospitalised for other reasons also became infected by the coronavirus.

A total of 138 patients got the virus in a period spanning January 1 to January 28, with hospital-associated transmission accounting for 41 per cent of all cases.

The study comes just hours after a Chinese doctor who was punished for raising the alarm about the coronavirus died from the pathogen -- sparking an outpouring of grief and anger over a worsening crisis that has now killed more than 630 people.

Li Wenliang, 34, sent out a message about the new coronavirus to colleagues on December 30 in Wuhan but was later among a group of people summoned by police for "rumor-mongering."