French scientists find Covid-19 case from December after tests
● Victim tested a month before first case confirmed in Europe
scientists say they might have identified a possible case of coronavirus dating back to December – about a month before the first cases were officially confirmed in Europe.
In a study published in the International Journal of Microbial Agents, doctors at a hospital north of Paris reviewed retrospective samples of 14 patients treated for atypical pneumonia between early December and mid-january.
Among them were the records of Amirouche Hammar, a 42-year-old fishmonger who has lived in France for years and had no recent travel history. He told French broadcaster BFM-TV that he drove himself to a hospital emergency unit one morning in late December because he felt very sick, with chest pains and breathing difficulties.
“They said ‘perhaps you have an infection, a pulmonary infection, although it’s not certain. But what you have is very serious, very serious, because you are coughing blood. It’s not normal flu’,” he said.
Mr Hammar was admitted with symptoms doctors say were consistent with Covid-19 patients in China and Italy. When doctors retested his old sample, they found it was positive for coronavirus.
“Identifying the first infected patient is of great epidemiological interest as it changes dramatically our knowledge,” wrote Yves Cohen, one of the French researchers.
The intensive care specialist works in the northern suburbs of Paris where Mr Hammar lives and which have been particularly hard-hit by Covid-19 infections and deaths.
There does not appear to have been any further transmission of the virus from Mr Hammar, who later recovered.
Dr Cohen and colleagues suggested their results showed there could be many other unidentified coronavifrench rus cases from before the disease was officially detected in Europe.
They acknowledged that because the study was done retrospectively, “medical records were not exhaustive and some relevant information might have been missing”.
Other experts said the results were interesting, but hardly conclusive.
Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said it was possible the results were due to lab contamination.
“If he was infected, then you would expect a more rapid and earlier spread of the virus in France than was seen,” he said in a statement.
Christian Lindmeier, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation, described the findings as “exciting news” and said they could help scientists better understand the evolution of coronavirus.
Infections have meanwhile risen sharply again in Russia, even as other nations made great strides in containing the scourge. China marked its third week with no new reported deaths, while South Korea restarted its baseball season.
In the US, some states took continued steps to lift the lockdown restrictions that have thrown millions out of work, even as the country recorded thousands of new infections and deaths every day.
Moscow reported more than 10,000 new cases for three days in a row. At the same time, manyeuropeancountriesthat have relaxed strict lockdowns after new infections tapered off were watching their virus numbers warily.
Italy this week allowed 4.4 million people to go back to work and eased restrictions on personal movement for the first time in two months.
The coming weeks are essentially an “experiment” to see how the infection curve reacts to the easing of the West’s first lockdown, the head of infectious diseases at Italy’s Superior Institute of Health said.
Widely seen as a success story, South Korea reported only three new cases of the virus, its lowest total since 18 February.