PARIS (AP) — France has become the first country outside Asia to report a death from a new virus that originated in China.
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said Saturday that the deceased patient was an 80-year-old Chinese tourist who tested positive for the virus in late January.
All the previous deaths from COVID-19 outside mainland China were in Asia, one each in Japan, the Philippines and Hong Kong.
The head of the infectious disease unit at the Paris hospital where the tourist died says says two French hospitals initially turned the man away and didn't test him for the virus because he “didn’t fulfill the definition” of someone considered at risk of infection.
