SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019

•SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019, 1 month before the first official cases in the country.•Early community spreading changes our knowledge of the COVID-19 epidemic.•This new case changes our understanding of the epidemic, and modelling studies should adjust to these n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of antimicrobial agents 2020-06, Vol.55 (6), p.106006-106006, Article 106006
Main Authors: Deslandes, A., Berti, V., Tandjaoui-Lambotte, Y., Alloui, Chakib, Carbonnelle, E., Zahar, J.R., Brichler, S., Cohen, Yves
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Betacoronavirus - isolation & purification
Coronavirus disease 2019
Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology
COVID-19
Female
France
France - epidemiology
Humans
Intensive care unit
Intensive Care Units
Male
Middle Aged
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology
Retrospective Studies
SARS-CoV-2
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Summary:•SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019, 1 month before the first official cases in the country.•Early community spreading changes our knowledge of the COVID-19 epidemic.•This new case changes our understanding of the epidemic, and modelling studies should adjust to these new data. The COVID-19 epidemic is believed to have started in late January 2020 in France. Here we report a case of a patient hospitalised in December 2019 in an intensive care unit in a hospital in the north of Paris for haemoptysis with no aetiological diagnosis. RT-PCR was performed retrospectively on the stored respiratory sample and confirmed the diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Based on this result, it appears that the COVID-19 epidemic started much earlier in France.
ISSN:0924-8579
1872-7913
DOI:10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.106006