Two patients died from complications, while a man is hospitalized in serious condition in Amiens (Somme).
No patient had been declared in France since February 15. And then, Wednesday, February 26: acceleration. The identification of new cases of people contaminated by the coronavirus Covid-19, which appeared in the region of Wuhan (China), seems to indicate that France, like its neighbors Italy and Spain, will not escape the epidemic.
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Thursday, February 27, the balance sheet in France amounted to 18 cases confirmed since the onset of the disease, including two fatal. Four people who test positive for coronavirus are hospitalized, one of whom is in serious condition. Here is what we know about the different cases observed on French soil since the start of the epidemic.
First three patients from China
The first three cases of coronavirus in mainland France were confirmed on the evening of January 24. Among them, un Chinese tourist couple in their thirties visiting the capital. Recently passed through Wuhan, they were placed in solitary confinement at Bichat hospital in Paris. By announcing the news, lhe Ile-de-France regional health agency (ARS) said their condition was not of concern. On February 12, the number 2 of the Ministry of Health, Jérôme Salomon, announced that they had left the hospital.
The third case also concerns a Chinese national. This 48-year-old man, then hospitalized in Bordeaux, is not a tourist. Originally from the Wuhan region, he works in the wine sector in Bordeaux. According to his relatives, cited by France 3 New Aquitaine, The patient did not receive any special treatment, apart from paracetamol for fever. After three weeks of isolation, on February 13, the Ministry of Health confirmed his recovery and his discharge from the hospital.
Six British patients infected in Haute-Savoie
On February 8, the then Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, announced that five new coronavirus patients had been identified and hospitalized without sign of seriousness in France. They are British people who, at the end of January, rubbed shoulders with a compatriot back from Singapore in a chalet in Haute-Savoie, in Les Contamines-Montjoie. These cases – four adults and a 9-year-old child – therefore represent a “Cluster” : A grouping of several cases around a “initial case”, a British national who stayed from January 24, for four days, in Haute-Savoie. “Their clinical condition shows no sign of seriousness”, specifies later Agnès Buzyn. In the entourage of these British, other people are placed in isolation in hospitals in Grenoble and Lyon. A measure that proves its effectiveness: on February 15, a sixth Briton tested positive while he was already hospitalized in a Lyonnais establishment.
Monday February 24, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, confirmed that the last patient in this group of six was cured and that all had been able to find their homes.
An 80-year-old Chinese man, the first dead on French soil, and his contaminated daughter
An 80-year-old Chinese man was hospitalized on January 25 in Paris. Arrived two days earlier from Hubei province, home of the epidemic, he tested positive for coronavirus. His condition quickly deteriorated: he placed in intensive care for more than two weeks with a serious pulmonary infection. On February 14, he died of complications. “This is the first death from the coronavirus outside of Asia, so the first death in Europe“ Agnès Buzyn specifies in a press conference given the following day.
The patient’s daughter, aged 50, is also hospitalized in Paris. Tested positive, it does not develop any complications. During her press conference, the Minister of Health said that she was out of the woods and able to leave Bichat hospital quickly.
A doctor, the first case of transmission on French soil
People arriving from a risk zone and presenting symptoms are advised to contact 15 and not to go to the emergency room or to a general practitioner. And for good reason: it was during a consultation of this type that the first case of transmission on French soil occurred. On January 30, the Ministry of Health announced that a liberal doctor had been infected by a Chinese patient who then left for Taiwan, where he declared the disease.
Hospitalized at Pitié-Salpêtrière, in Paris, this practitioner in his 50s testified on February 3 on BFMTV: “I had a little fever, I went up to 38 ° C, with a sore throat and a headache. And then the fever passed the next day, the sore throat three days later, and then the headache five days later. I haven’t had anything for three days (…) Frankly, if I hadn’t known through the ARS [agence régionale de santé] that I had known a sick patient, I would not have known. ” He was released from hospital on February 14.
A 33-year-old French-Chinese woman
A 33-year-old French-Chinese woman who returned from China on February 7 was hospitalized in Paris. She showed no clinical signs of severity. Considered cured, she left the hospital on February 26, announced number 2 of the Ministry of Health, Jérôme Salomon.
Two French people contaminated in Italy and the wife of one of them, still hospitalized
On Wednesday 26 February, the authorities announced several new cases of coronavirus on French soil, two of which were probably infected during trips to northern Italy.
A 64-year-old Frenchman is hospitalized in Annecy (Haute-Savoie). According to the regional health agency Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, it tested positive on Tuesday 25 February. This man, who lives in La Balme-de-Sillingy, East “professionally required to travel several times a month between France and Italy, especially in Lombardy”, said ARS, cited by The Dauphiné released. “He was able to accurately trace all of his meetings “, has indicated Serge Morais, Deputy Director General of ARS Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne. “The contacts established are being analyzed and processed, as for the Contamines-Montjoie cluster. For those close to them, if they have symptoms, they will undergo samples and, pending the results, they will be isolated at home. ”
The patient’s wife was also tested positive and hospitalized on Wednesday, announced Jérôme Salomon. The couple’s state of health is not a cause for concern.
Another person returned from Lombardy, a 36-year-old man, is hospitalized in France. After returning from a stay in Milan, he was treated in isolation at the New Civil Hospital in Strasbourg. It does not present “of gravity sign”, said the Minister of Health on Wednesday.
A teacher, the first Frenchman to die after being infected on the territory
A 60-year-old Frenchman died on the night of February 25-26 at the Paris hospital of Pitié-Salpêtrière. It was the first death of a Frenchman contaminated in France. He had been “emergency tested” Tuesday “in a very serious state “, in the words of the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon. An investigation was launched in “emergency” to find out where he got infected. This teacher in a college in Crépy-en-Valois (Oise) had not traveled to an area affected by the virus. It is for this reason, said the director of ARS Hauts-de-France, Etienne Champion, that the medical team at Creil hospital, where the professor was treated for six days, did not suspected a case of coronavirus.
Around thirty Creil nursing staff members who have been in direct contact with the patient are all identified. They have been warned and are under quarantine at home, according to a union source at the Creil hospital in France Télévisions. None showed symptoms on Tuesday afternoon, the source said. Tests are underway on two patients who are in solitary confinement in the hospital, in stable condition.
A man in serious condition hospitalized in Amiens
A 55-year-old Frenchman, also from Oise, is hospitalized in Amiens (Somme) “in a serious clinical situation (…) in intensive care”, the Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday February 26. According to ARS Hauts-de-France, he did not go to a risky exposure area either.
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