French hospital says first suspected COVID-19 cases dating back to Nov 16

PARIS - The first suspected cases of COVID-19 infection in France could date back to Nov 16 last year, some nine weeks earlier than the official record of the country's first confirmed cases, a hospital in eastern France said Thursday.

"Doctor Michel Schmitt, head of the medical imaging department at the Albert Schweitzer hospital in Colmar, has reviewed 2,456 chest scans performed between Nov. 1 and April 30, for all reasons (cardiac, pulmonary, traumatic, tumor pathologies)," said the hospital in a press release.

The typical scans compatible with COVID-19 infection have been also reviewed in a second then a third reading by two other experienced radiologists. According to this retrospective study, the first cases of contamination with COVID-19 were thus identified from Nov 16 in this hospital, it said.

Albert Schweitzer hospital added that it has launched a collaboration with France's National Center for Scientific Research to start an epidemiological exploitation of these results.

Before this announcement, the first case of COVID-19 infection in east France was officially identified in late February. It involved a 36-year-old man who returned from a trip to Lombardy, then hotspot of the epidemic in Italy.

The first COVID-19 infection cases officially recorded in France were on Jan 24, 2020 relating to individuals who had recently arrived or returned from China.