The Chinese army deployed medical specialists Saturday to the epicentre of a spiralling viral outbreak that has killed 41 people and spread around the world, as millions spent their normally festive Lunar New Year holiday under lockdown.
![China deploys army medics to overwhelmed virus epicentre](http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/a54face09514a18491ad70506aa8946b94c643a3.jpg)
On Saturday, when they should have been celebrating, citizens of Wuhan stood in line at a pharmacy to buy masks from employees in full-body protective suits and surgical gloves.
On the eastern outskirts of Wuhan -- Hubei's capital and the source of the previously unknown 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) --
police manning a roadblock turned away a handful of vehicles trying to exit the city.