Coronavirus in the UK: latest news and updates after first cases confirmed in England

Eight people have now tested positive for coronavirus in England, the Department of Health has announced.

The virus originated in China, and over 1,100 people have already died - globally there are nearly 45000 confirmed cases.

More than 70 people had been tested for suspected coronavirus in the UK, but none had been confirmed as having contracted it until now.

Here's everything you need to know:

Where are the UK cases?

Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the UK cases were "not surprising and almost inevitable".

It is understood the patients are not in the Wirral area, where a special facility has been set up to quarantine those returning from Wuhan.

One of the three people diagnosed with coronavirus in Britain is a student at the University of York.

Two of the patients are being treated in an NHS specialist disease centre in Newcastle and are members of the same family, Public Health England (PHE) said.

The third person in the UK to be diagnosed with coronavirus did not catch it in mainland China, the chief medical officer has said.

The patient, who caught the infection elsewhere in Asia, was diagnosed in Brighton, it is understood.

The Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said the fourth patient was a known contact of a previous UK case, and that the virus was passed on in France.

It comes shortly after a British man in Majorca was confirmed to have tested positive for the virus, and as more than 200 people return to the UK on the Government's last repatriation flight on Sunday morning.

The Majorca case is said to be one of four members of a British family who were taken into observation on Friday. They came into contact with someone in France who was later diagnosed with the virus, but his wife and two daughters have tested negative and show no symptoms.

Five Britons have tested positive for coronavirus in France while on holiday in the Alps, the country's health minister has confirmed.

Four adults and a child have also been diagnosed with the virus, after staying in the same French Alps ski chalet and coming into contact with a Briton who had recently returned from Singapore.