10:01

A 33-year-old German man may be the first European to have contracted Covid-19 and to have transmitted it, Italian daily newspaper il Corriere della Sera has reported, citing a letter of German experts published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

According to the German doctors, “a 33-year-old otherwise healthy German businessman (Patient 1) became ill with a sore throat, chills, and myalgias on 24 January 2020. The following day, a fever of 39.1°C (102.4°F) developed, along with a productive cough. By the evening of the next day, he started feeling better and went back to work on 27 January.”



On 20 and 21 January, before the onset of symptoms, the man had attended a series of meetings with a Chinese business partner at his company near Munich. The business partner, a Shanghai resident, had visited Germany between 19 and 22 January.

“During her stay, she had been well with no signs or symptoms of infection but had become ill on her flight back to China, where she tested positive for 2019-nCoV on 26 January,” write the doctors.



The woman had immediately informed the company about her illness. Contact tracing was started and the 33-year-old German man was sent to the Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine in Munich for further assessment.

On 28 January, three additional employees at the company tested positive for 2019-nCoV and so far, none of the four confirmed patients show signs of severe clinical illness.



“This case of 2019-nCoV infection was diagnosed in Germany and transmitted outside Asia,” write the experts.

“However, it is notable that the infection appears to have been transmitted during the incubation period of the index patient, in whom the illness was brief and nonspecific.”