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Covid-19 appears to have infected people in France weeks before the disease was detected in Europe and possibly before the first cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were announced in China in December, according to scientists and doctors who analyzed samples of the virus.
Reanalyzing samples from patients with flu-like symptoms at a hospital north of Paris, one was found to test positive for coronavirus late last year, a finding described in an article for the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents published this week.
“We had a positive case of Covid-19 on December 27 that was hospitalized with us in Jean-Verdier [hospital]”Yves Cohen, head of intensive care at two hospitals in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, told BFMTV in France. He was one of the contributors to the newspaper.
“It is not surprising when you consider that the World Health Organization has announced that it would circulate in China at least since December 8. Given the amount of travel, it is normal for the virus to appear rapidly in France.”
France reported the first Covid-19 death in Western Europe on February 15, when a Chinese tourist from Hubei died in a Paris hospital after arriving in the country on January 25.
Anders Tegnell, right, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, said the coronavirus may have been circulating in the country since November © Jessica Gow / TT News Agency / Reuters
Meanwhile, Sweden had its first case of coronavirus in November, according to the country’s leading epidemiologist. Travelers from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the disease is believed to have originated, probably visited the country in November or December, Anders Tegnell told local media. “It doesn’t sound entirely strange,” he said.
Sweden’s first official case, a 20-year-old woman returning from a trip to Wuhan, came in January.
The French patient Covid-19, whose infection was confirmed with two different types of genetic testing, was a 42-year-old man born in Algeria who had not traveled abroad since July 2019, but one of whose sons had previously reported symptoms similar to the flu. . The father recovered.
“Identifying the first infected patient is of great epidemiological interest, as it dramatically changes our knowledge about Sars-Cov-2 and its spread in the country,” the newspaper said. “Also, the absence of a link [from the patient] with China and the lack of recent travel suggest that the disease was already spreading among the French population in late December 2019. ”
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More than 25,000 people have died from Covid-19 in French hospitals and nursing homes since March 1, although the spread of the virus has slowed sharply since a closure was imposed on March 17. Seine-Saint-Denis and Paris have been among the most affected areas.
A separate document from scientists at the Institut Pasteur in France also concluded that the coronavirus appeared to be circulating in the country in February before the appearance of a series of well-publicized outbreaks that were subsequently controlled by testing and quarantine measures.
The authors said their genomic data “implicates the local circulation of the virus in undocumented infections prior to the Covid-19 wave of cases.”
Their analyzes of different clades or variants of Covid-19 led them to infer “that the virus was circulating quietly in France in February, a scenario compatible with the large proportion of mild or asymptomatic diseases.” . . and observations in other European countries. ”
Additional report by Richard Milne in Oslo
