Coronavirus was circulating in France before it emerged in China, new evidence suggests

• The patient was identified as 43-year-old fishmonger, Amirouche Hammar, a resident of Bobigny, who became infected sometime between December 14 and December 22.
• Researchers and experts said the patient had the illness a month before the first case was confirmed in Wuhan.
• French government is investigating the report while the doctors who made the finding said that they tested the patient’s old sample twice to avoid false positives.

(Karachi) The first case of coronavirus might not have emerged in China but it was circulating in France, a new evidence suggests.

As per details, doctors at a hospital in Paris discovered that a patient who went to a health facility in late December with respiratory problems was infected with COVID-19. The man contracted the virus a month before France confirmed its first coronavirus case.

The doctors had originally collected the samples to test for the flu using a polymerase chain reaction test, the same test used to detect the new coronavirus which searches for bits of viral genetic material.

The patient was identified as 43-year-old fishmonger, Amirouche Hammar, a resident of Bobigny, who became infected sometime between December 14 and December 22. He went to the hospital with a dry cough, a fever and breathing problem on December 27.

Researchers and experts said the patient had the illness a month before the first case was confirmed in Wuhan. They said identifying the first infected patient could prove vital about information on the origins of the virus.