Hubei Red Cross Vice President Zhang Qin was fired for “dereliction of duty while receiving and distributing donated funds and goods”, according to a statement on the Hubei province party discipline commission’s website.

Two other officials received disciplinary warnings for the same charge, it added.

The local chapter of the charity was the target of online anger last week as social media users and Chinese media asked why frontline doctors in the stricken province were still under-equipped despite donations pouring in.

Under local law, Chinese authorities supervize the charity’s “performance of its functions and duties… and exercise supervision over its activities”.

Many on the Twitter-like Weibo platform asked if Wuhan, the province’s capital, was a “black hole” with one user commenting that “the whole country and the whole world’s supplies and masks aren’t enough to supply one city and one province”.

The novel coronavirus has killed more than 400 people and infected a further 20,000 in China, with most of the deaths and infections reported in Hubei province, where the virus emerged at a Wuhan market in December.