Coronavirus news – live: Deadly virus reaches Europe as UK 'hunting for 2,000 people who arrived from Wuhan' and China puts 41m under lockdown

China has shut down at least 13 cities encompassing 41 million people in an attempt to contain a deadly virus that has infected hundreds of people.

Some 830 cases of the new coronavirus have been confirmed and 26 people have died, the National Health Commission said on Thursday.

Most cases are in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated in a market which traded in illegal wildlife, but cases have also been confirmed in the United States, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.

Fourteen people have been tested for the virus in the UK, with five confirmed negative and nine still awaiting results, Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday night.

However France has reported the first cases in Europe - with three people confirmed to have been infected after travelling in China.

Here is the day's news as it happened