December 31, 2020, local time, the French Ministry of Health issued an announcement that another mutant of COVID-19 infection was confirmed in France on the same day.
The infected virus variant was 501 found in South Africa. V2 strain. The announcement said that the male infected person lives in Upper Rhine Province, which is on the border between France and Switzerland. He had previously stayed in South Africa and had suspected symptoms a few days after returning to France.
It is understood that the man was tested for COVID-19 nucleic acid in Switzerland and diagnosed with the infection. Later, he was confirmed as a mutant COVID-19 infection by the Swiss National Reference Laboratory on December 30, 2020, and the relevant French agencies also confirmed it.
The French health ministry said the man began to quarantine at home immediately after showing symptoms and has recovered, and the French health department is looking for close contacts of the man.
Previously, on December 25, 2020, the French General Administration of Health also said that the first mutant novel coronavirus infection in France was found in the Midwest city of Tours, infected with a mutant strain found in the United Kingdom.
The French man lived in London and returned to France because of traditional festivals.
Since then, the French health department has launched a monitoring mechanism for mutant COVID-19 cases. For all test samples of people with COVID-19 who return from the United Kingdom and South Africa, each test site must be submitted to the French National Center for Respiratory Infection Virus Reference Level for gene sequence analysis.
