First case of Coronavirus in Europe was in Germany, not Italy, according to US medical journal.
A 33-year-old German man may be the first European to have contracted the Coronavirus, or Covid-19, and the first to have transmitted it in Europe, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The case, referred to as "Patient 1", was recorded in Germany on 24 January - a month before the first case in Italy - according to a letter by German doctors published in the US medical journal on 5 March.
The report has been widely reported today in Italy where the first case of locally-transmitted Coronavirus was reported in Codogno, in the northern Lombardy region, on 21 February.
However news of the German Coronavirus infection on 24 January was reported four days later, on 28 January, by British newspaper The Guardian, which described it at the time as the "first human-to-human transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus in Europe."
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In addition to identifying Germany as the first country in Europe to register a transmitted case of Coronavirus, the American scientific study illustrates the potential of transmission by people who are asymptomatic.
Referring to the US study, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reports that the German man began to suffer from breathing difficulties and a high temperature on 24 January, however three days later his condition had improved sufficiently for him to return to work.
Before becoming sick the "otherwise healthy businessman" had attended a meeting near Munich, on 20-21 January, during which a female colleague from Shanghai was present. The woman, who stayed in Germany from 19 to 21 January, showed no signs of being unwell until she fell ill during her flight home.
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On 26 January the woman was diagnosed positive with Coronavirus upon which she informed her colleagues in Germany.
Tests were carried out on the Germans with whom she had been in contact, including the 33-year-old man, who tested positive for the Coronavirus but was asymptomatic. Three colleagues who had contact with the 33-year-old tested positive.
