French hospital discovers Covid-19 case from December
5 May, 2020
Man found to have had virus a month before government confirmed first cases.
A French hospital that retested old samples from pneumonia patients has discovered that it treated a man with the coronavirus as early as 27 December, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.
Dr Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told BFM TV that scientists had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for flu.
“Of the 24, we had one who was positive for Covid-19 on 27 December,” he told the news channel on Sunday.
The samples had all initially been collected to detect flu using PCR tests, the same genetic screening process that can also be used to detect the presence of the coronavirus. Each sample was retested several times to ensure that there were no errors, he added.
