First Case Of New Coronavirus Identified In France

“France has identified its first case of a new strain of coronavirus emerging from the Middle East in a person recently returned from the United Arab Emirates, the health ministry said on Wednesday,” Reuters reports (Bremer, 5/8). “France’s health minister, Marisol Touraine, said ‘this is an isolated case’ in France but said authorities are ‘fully mobilized’ to prevent it from spreading,” according to the Associated Press/Washington Post, which also writes, “Since September 2012, the [WHO] has been informed of 30 confirmed cases of the virus, and 18 of the patients have died. Cases have been emerged in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Britain and Germany, and health officials have said the virus has likely already spread between people in some circumstances” (5/8).

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