In a 2019 Netflix documentary, billionaire Bill Gates predicted a killer virus could originate in China's wet markets to rapidly infect the world

In what now appears to be an eerie premonition of future events, the Microsoft tycoon warned in an episode of the Netflix 'Explained' series that the world was ill-prepared to deal with a global pandemic.

In the series aired late last year Mr Gates had warned of the likelihood of a virus breaking out in one of China's wet markets - exactly like the one in Wuhan where this new outbreak of Coronavirus is believed to have originated.

Bill Gates featured in this episode of the 'Explained' series to discuss the likelihood of a killer virus going global

Billionaire Bill Gates appeared in the Netflix documentary to talk about the likelihood of a virus breaking out in one of China's wet markets where animals are killed on the spot before being sold

In the episode titled 'The Next Pandemic' the documentary producers go to a wet market in Lianghua, China, where animals are killed and the resulting meat sold in the same place.

This, the documentary explained, makes the wet markets a 'disease X factory' as the different animal corpses are stacked on top of each other, blood and meat mixing, before being passed from human to human.

'All the while, their viruses are mixing and mutating, increasing the odds that one finds its way to humans,' the documentary goes on to explain.

In the episode, Mr Gates also warned the world was ill-prepared to deal with the implications of the viral spread of disease when cures were often years away.

He said if nothing was done to better prepare for pandemics the time would come when the world would look back and wish it had invested more into potential vaccines.

'If you think of anything that could come along that would kill millions of people, a pandemic is our greatest risk,' he said.

Members of staff of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team drive their vehicle as they leave the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the city of Wuhan. This is believed to be the source of the coronavirus outbreak

Workers in protective gear catch a giant salamander that was reported to have escaped from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. Wet markets such as this one in Wuhan which has been closed have been described as having conditions rife for a viral outbreak

Scientists who have been looking at the current coronavirus outbreak believe it comes from snakes and bats - animals that had been sold live at the Wuhan seafood market, before being killed and eaten.

Previous pandemics have also originated in China, such as the SARS outbreak that came from bats and civet cats.

And as the World Health Organisation classes the latest coronavirus outbreak as a global health emergency, the race is on to find a vaccine.

The number of cases have been rapidly growing each day and the death toll has surpassed 200.

Scientists in Hong Kong and China are reportedly close to finding a vaccine and testing it for use.