A patient diagnosed with pneumonia near Paris on December 27 actually had the coronavirus, his doctor said.
Doctor Yves Cohen told French media that a swab taken during the patient's treatment was recently re-examined and tested positive for covid-19, the BBC reports.
The patient, a 50-year-old man who has since fully recovered, said he had no idea how he contracted the virus because he had not been in any infected areas.
This news means that the virus may have arrived in France almost a month earlier than previously thought.
According to the information so far, the first three cases of coronavirus in the country were confirmed on January 24.
Of these, two of those infected had previously been in Wuhan, China, where the epidemic was first discovered, and the third was a close family member.
Dr. Cohen, who is the head of resuscitation at a French hospital, said that he and his colleagues retested swabs from earlier patients who had a different diagnosis, to try to find traces of the coronavirus.
"Out of the 14 patients, one tested positive. We tested him two more times to make sure there was no mistake. And he was positive both times," Cohen said.
He stated that he has alerted the National Health Agency (ARS) and is calling on other virologists to re-test swabs in their hospitals for covid-19.
The full report is due later this week, and will be published by the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, he added.
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