France registered this Friday the first case of infection with the new variant of the covid-19 virus that appeared in the United Kingdom, the French Ministry of Health announced.
According to the French health authorities, quoted by AFP, the case was detected in the city of Tours (center of France) in a French citizen residing in the United Kingdom who is asymptomatic and isolated at home.
The Ministry of Health also said that this citizen arrived from London on 19 December and that after performing a test on 21, he tested positive, being the first case of infection with the “VOC 202012/01” variant of the covid- 19 detected in France.
According to the same source, this information was confirmed by the National Reference Center for Respiratory Infection Viruses (NRC).
The health authorities carried out contact screenings to the health professionals who attended this patient and to the closest contacts to carry out his prophylactic isolation ”, says the French Ministry of Health.
The same source adds that, in addition to this case, other positive samples suspected of being the “VOC 202012/01” variant are being analyzed in the laboratories.
Similar cases have already been detected in Germany, in a woman who arrived by plane from the United Kingdom, and in Lebanon, also in a passenger from that European country.
British authorities alerted the World Health Organization on Saturday to the discovery of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is more easily transmissible, although there is no evidence that it is more lethal or that it could impact the effectiveness of developed vaccines.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,743,187 deaths resulting from more than 79.3 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report made by the French agency AFP.
