05:03

Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris where a second person infected with the coronavirus has died

Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters

There are now 18 confirmed cases of coronavirus in France and two people have died.



A 61-year-old man, a school teacher from the Oise region, who died overnight on Tuesday of a pulmonary embolism after contracting the coronavirus, was said to have had no link to any of the areas at risk.

The same goes for a 55-year-old French man, said to be a civilian member of staff at a military air base at Creil, also in the Oise, north of Paris, who is currently in a critical condition in intensive care in hospital in Amiens. The man was diagnosed as carrying the coronavirus on Wednesday.

A third man, aged 36, who returned from Lombardy in Italy with the virus, is in hospital in Strasbourg. His condition has been described as not serious for the moment.

“The two patients from the Oise have not been near the zones where there is a risk. That’s why they were not at first considered to be possible cases of coronavirus,” said Etienne Champion, director of the regional health agency.

“Our investigations are continuing to establish the source of these two contaminations,” Champion added.

The health authorities said they were contacting all those who might have come into contact with the technology teacher, including hospital staff, and his school colleagues, pupils from the four classes he taught and parents.

Champion said the teacher had been off sick since 12 February. The school at Crépy-en-Valois is currently closed for the half-term holidays.

“Knowing that the period between incubation and appearance of the illness is a maximum 14 days, only those children and adults who have been in contact (with him) and who show symptoms should make themselves known. We have passed the incubation period so anyone who is not ill today is not likely to have contracted it,” he added.

On Thursday morning, President Emmanuel Macron visited the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital where the teacher died after being transferred “in a grave condition” with breathing difficulties from a hospital in Creil.

The first death in France was an 80-year-old tourist from China.