10:09

The third person to be diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK contracted the disease outside of China, it has emerged.

The patient, who it is understood was diagnosed in Brighton but is being transferred to a London hospital, did not contract the disease in the UK or mainland China but another country in Asia.

The details have been confirmed by England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, who refused to disclose whether the individual was a British national or which specific country they contracted the disease in.

Speaking about the new case, Whitty said:

The person who caught this did not catch it in China, they caught it elsewhere in Asia. That’s an important point from an epidemiological point of view because [...] there is now evidence of some limited transmission in a number of Asian countries.

NHS doctors are being advised to widen the pool of countries to look out for returning individuals who display symptoms.

Whitty explained: “If a doctor in the NHS sees a patient who has travelled from Asia, now they will start thinking about testing from a wider geographical area than would have been the case before. So we are shifting geography for NHS doctors to test.”

The countries will be confirmed later on Thursday.