A Wuhan medic has said there are more deaths from coronavirus than reported, as patients are dying before they can even be tested for the virus.

Hospital worker Jeisi Luo, not his real name, also made the shocking claim that there are far more cases than official figures suggest, because the waiting list for diagnosis is too long.

Official figures from China claim there are 24,000 cases in the country, with 13,522 of these recorded in the virus epicentre and surrounding Hubei province, although the actual figure is suspected to be higher.

A video emerged two weeks ago from the province of a medical worker claiming there are as many as 90,000 cases in the city.

Footage filmed at Wuhan's Number Three hospital this week showed eight body bags loaded in a bus, with more allegedly added while the recorder was inside the hospital for five minutes.

Hospital worker Jeisi Luo, not his real name, made the shocking claims. Pictured above is a hospital worker in a Wuhan hospital yesterday

There have been 24,000 cases of coronavirus worldwide so far, and more than 13,500 in Wuhan

Mr Luo warned that the problem lies in an inability to carry out enough nucleic acid tests (NAT), which diagnose the virus.

'When preliminary tests determine that a patient has a lung sickness, the nucleic acid test which detects the virus, cannot always be carried out because the waiting list is too long,' he told DW. 'The patient is therefore not diagnosed.'

He said medics were dealing with this crisis by 'prescribing medicine' and sending patients home to 'self-isolate'.

'The waiting rooms are full of people coughing,' he said. 'Healthy people who have to wait in these conditions risk infection.'

He added that China's emergency 120 number is totally overwhelmed and that, with insufficient taxis to take everyone to hospital, some sufferers are walking there to receive treatment.

Mr Luo warned that the problem lies in an inability to carry out tests for the virus fast enough

Pictured above is one of the 1,000 bed hospitals in Wuhan, China, which has been built to help the country handle the virus outbreak

China has raced to build two hospitals with more than 1,000 beds to help it handle the crisis, as well as putting Wuhan in lock-down.

However, it is expected that the new hospitals will not provide high enough capacity as there won't be enough doctors and medical staff available to run them.

Pictures from inside the new hospital show rows and rows of beds next to each other.

Appeals have also gone out on social media for face masks and other essential supplies to be sent to the beleaguered city.

The virus has managed to spread to 27 other countries so far, with Belgium being the latest to report a case.

The number of cases in China jumped by more than 3,000 in a day yesterday.

Many nations including France and the US have flown their citizens out of China, and the UK foreign office has advised all 30,000 British nationals in the country to leave China.