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France Discovers Undiagnosed Coronavirus Patient From Last Year
Posted
May 7, 2020
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1:32Now PlayingFrench scientists say they may have identified a possible case of the new 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 those were the records of Amirouche Hammar, a fishmonger in his 40s from Algeria who has lived in France for years and had no recent travel history.
Hammar told the Associated Press doctors informed him only a few weeks ago he had likely been suffering from COVID-19 back in December.
He described having suffered from a persistent dry cough and then a fever that must have been above 40 degrees centigrade.
But the doctors thought he was infected with a severe infection and hadn't determined back then that it was COVID-19.
Now healthy and kicking a football in his garden, Hammar says that seeing the coronavirus' global "deadly tidal wave" he feels "blessed" to have survived.
Hammar, a diabetic, was admitted to the hospital with symptoms doctors say were consistent with COVID-19 patients in China and Italy.
Two of his children were also ill shortly before Hammar fell ill.
When doctors retested Hammar's old sample, they found it was positive for the coronavirus.
Professor Yves Cohen is one of the French researchers and an intensive care specialist in the northern suburbs of Paris where Hammar lives and which have been particularly hard-hit by COVID-19 infections and deaths.
Cohen shrugs off the possibility that Hammar's samples were contaminated, telling AP that they did two different tests and both were positive.
He said they also rechecked the CT scans for COVID-19 and they were consistent with COVID.
There doesn't appear to have been any further transmission of the virus from Hammar, who later recovered after being treated with antibiotics in the ICU.
Cohen and colleagues suggested their results showed there could be many other unidentified coronavirus cases from before the disease was officially detected in Europe.
Some experts said the results were interesting, but hardly conclusive.
A spokesman for the World Health Organization described the findings as "exciting news" and said they could help scientists better understand the evolution of the new coronavirus.
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