1,523 deaths have been recorded in China since the start of the coronavirus epidemic. The 80-year-old Chinese patient hospitalised in Paris died.
The assessment of the epidemic of the new coronavirus exceeded Saturday 15th February 2020, 1500 dead in China, and the first case of contamination in Africa was found in Egypt.
The Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, announced the death of the Chinese tourist, aged 80, and hospitalized at the Bichat Hospital in Paris.
“I was informed last night of the death of the patient who had been hospitalized since January 25 and who had a coronavirus pulmonary infection. The patient, a Chinese tourist from Hubei province, arrived in France on January 16th.”
Coronavirus: Agnès Buzyn annonce la mort du touriste chinois de 80 ans hospitalisé à l’hôpital Bichat pic.twitter.com/Py5H9dMteD
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) February 15, 2020
It is the first coronavirus-related death in Europe. Only three deaths have so far been recorded outside mainland China: the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan.
Not surprising
This first death in Europe “is not a surprise”, for Andrew Freedman, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Cardiff, recalling that if the overall mortality rate of this virus is “low, probably below 2%”, the elderly or already suffering from another disease are at higher risk.
“Any serious respiratory infection in a vulnerable person is a concern, whether it is the flu, bacterial pneumonia or, as here, a coronavirus,” also observes Michael Head, a researcher at the University of Southampton.
“The most important thing to emphasize is that there has still been no continuous human-to-human transmission in Europe”, which means that the risk for populations “remains low”, according to Robin Thompson, specialist in Mathematical modelling of epidemics at the University of Oxford, in a commentary collected by the British Science Media Center.
France has so far identified 11 confirmed cases linked to the Covid-19 epidemic.
The first case in Africa
The Egyptian Ministry of Health announced Friday that it has registered the first case on the African continent. The carrier, who is not Egyptian, was hospitalized in quarantine.
More than 66,000 cases of contamination have now been recorded in China, including at least 1,716 among doctors and nurses working with patients, according to the National Health Commission, which acts as a ministry.
