Just few days or hours after Egypt confirmed contact with the deadly coronavirus, meaning Africa is at risk, the continent of Europe has also confirmed the death of a coronavirus patient.
The victim was an 80-year-old man from China’s Hubei province, according to French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn. He arrived in France on 16 January and was placed in quarantine in hospital in Paris on 25 January, she said. The man, a Chinese tourist died in France after contracting the new coronavirus – the first fatality from the disease outside Asia.
Only three deaths had previously been reported outside mainland China – in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Japan. However, more than 1,500 people have died from the virus within China, mostly in Hubei where it first emerged.
In late January, France became the first European country to confirm cases of the virus. It has had 11 confirmed cases of the disease, officially called Covid-19. Six people remain in hospital. The deceased man had been in a critical condition in the Bichat hospital in northern Paris, the health minister said. He died of a lung infection due to the coronavirus. The man’s 50-year-old daughter is among the six in hospital with the virus, but she is recovering, Ms Buzyn said.
The other five are British nationals who caught the virus at a chalet in the ski resort of Contamines-Montjoie. Is this deadly virus slowly becoming a global epidemic?
Credit: BBC
