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It is now known that a FRENCH had coronavirus in December after samples collected at the end of last year were retested and a positive case was found.
Amirouche Hammar, 43, whose symptoms puzzled doctors at the time, came after a hospital near Paris said it had found a case of the virus in a sample taken on December 27.
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He said he had to go to the hospital because he was suffering from “very serious” chest pain and shortness of breath.
Doctors finally concluded that he had a lung infection and Hammar recovered after spending several days in the hospital.
It is unknown how Hammar, who has no ties to China, where the outbreak began, contracted the virus, but his wife works at a supermarket counter near Charles de Gaulle airport.
The airport is a major international hub, and it is common for the supermarket to obtain customers who have recently landed.
The finding suggests that the virus reached Europe and began spreading long before it was identified and understood as a public health emergency.
France officially confirmed its first coronavirus case on January 24, exactly four weeks after the now positive sample was taken.
In an interview with BMFTV, Hammar said he initially thought he had the flu, but that he went to Avicenne hospital in the Paris suburbs after his symptoms worsened.
“At 5 am I decided to take my car and went straight to the hospital,” he said.
“I said, ‘We should call the doctor right away, something is wrong. I have chest pain.'”
He said he had been contacted in the past few days by Dr. Yves Cohen, who works at the Avicenne hospital, and told him that it had been “100 percent positive” for the coronavirus.
Since then, Dr. Cohen explained that researchers at two different hospitals had conducted new tests on samples from 24 patients originally taken to detect the flu.
“I was amazed, I didn’t understand how he had been infected,” he said.
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“We put the puzzle together and he had not made any trips.
“The only contact he had was with his wife.”
He added that it was too early to know with certainty who was the “patient zero” of France.
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