Medical workers wearing hazmat suits as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus are seen at a fever clinic in Huanggang Zhongxin Hospital in Huanggang, in Chinas central Hubei province on March 26, 2020. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

Missing: Wuhan Whistleblower Doctor Who Alerted Colleagues Over CCP Virus

A Wuhan doctor who claimed she first alerted colleagues about the CCP virus outbreak in the region has reportedly disappeared, just weeks after publicly criticizing the Chinese regime for its coverup and mismanagement of what has now escalated into a global pandemic.

Doctor Ai Fen, the head of Emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, has been missing for days, according to a March 31 report by “60 Minutes Australia.” Her disappearance comes just two weeks after she said authorities had prevented her and her colleagues from warning the world about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

“She has now disappeared, her whereabouts unknown,” the flagship investigative show reported, amid fears the doctor could have been detained for speaking out.

The emergency surgeon this month revealed that she was the “whistle provider” who gave a diagnosis report of the virus to her colleague Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist, who was among the first people to publicize information about the outbreak in Wuhan.

“Seven ‘SARS-like’ cases from the Huanan seafood market have been confirmed,” Li wrote on Dec. 30, 2019, on Chinese social media app WeChat, in a chat group with hundreds of his former medical school classmates, attaching a screenshot of a diagnosis report. Li revealed the information a day before Wuhan’s health officials acknowledged that there was a mysterious viral pneumonia outbreak.

Despite Li’s reminder to not “spread it externally,” screenshots of the conversation showing his full name proliferated on the internet very quickly. On Jan. 3, police reprimanded him along with seven other medical professionals for spreading “rumors” online. The police statement said he had violated the law.

Days later, Li contracted the virus while operating on an asymptomatic patient for glaucoma, and died on Feb. 7.

Before her alleged disappearance, Ai said police didn’t go after her, but that she received an “unprecedented, very harsh admonition” from her superiors.

“Many, many times, I thought how nice it would be if we could turn back the clock,” she told Chinese magazine Portrait, adding that she regretted not telling more doctors about the danger.

“If I knew what it would be like today, no matter if I got criticized or not, I would have spread it all around,” she said. “Someone has to stand up and tell the truth. … There has to be different voices in this world, right?”

Shortly after the 60 Minutes Australia show aired, a cryptic post was published on Ai’s Weibo account—the first since March 16, when a message had been posted saying that she was at work, as usual, reported Radio Free Asia.

The mysterious post on Sunday appeared to show a photograph taken from Wuhan’s Jianghan Road, and a caption read: “A river. A bridge. A road. A clock chime.”

The Epoch Times has not been able to verify Ai’s disappearance or whereabouts independently, however, several citizens—including citizen journalists, scholars, and business people—have been muzzled and suppressed by the regime for attempting to reveal the actual situation of the CCP virus outbreak that originated in Wuhan.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), in a letter dated Tuesday, called on the State Department to push China to probe the disappearance of Chinese citizen journalists, Fang Bin, Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua, who all vanished after taking and publishing images and videos which revealed the real impact of the CCP virus.

Banks told The Epoch Times last week the Beijing regime should pay a “severe price” for covering up the deadly CCP virus pandemic.

“We have got to hold China accountable and make them pay,” he said on The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders program.

Cathy He and Eva Fu contributed to this report.