PARIS, France - A British man managed to pass on the coronavirus to at least 11 other people without ever setting foot in the epicenter of the outbreak in China, in an infectious journey that shows how the deadly virus can spread rapidly around a globalized world.
The adult British citizen, who has not been named publicly, caught the virus while attending a conference in Singapore and then passed it on to several compatriots while on holiday in the French Alps, before finally being diagnosed back in the UK.
Of those infected by the man, five have been hospitalized in France, five in Britain and one other man on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
How did he pass on the new coronavirus so rapidly in so many different places?
SINGAPORE
The man attended a business conference in Singapore from 20-22 January. More than 100 people took part in the conference, including at least one Chinese national from Hubei province, the epicentre of the epidemic that has now left more than 900 dead.
HAUTE-SAVOIE, FRENCH ALPS
He then traveled on to France to spend some days from January 24-28 at the ski resort of Contamines-Montjoie in the Alps with a group of other British citizens staying in two apartments in the same chalet.
BRIGHTON, ENGLAND
Stricken with fever after his return to the south of England, the man then went to a medical center in the southeastern town of Brighton where he was diagnosed with the coronavirus.
On February 6 he was transferred to the infectious diseases unit at the hospital of St Thomas in London.
Five other people who had contact with him at the French ski chalet were then confirmed by the British health authorities to be infected.
Some of the staff from The Grenadier pub, which the man went to just before he was hospitalized, have also been placed in isolation. But the pub has stayed open.
A medical center in Brighton said Monday it had temporarily closed for "an urgent operational health and safety reason".
The BBC and Sky News said one of the centre's staff members had tested positive for the virus, although this was not officially confirmed.
PARIS
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on February 8 that five British nationals, including a child, who stayed at the chalet with the man had tested positive.
Six other Britons staying in the same chalet were also hospitalized for observation.
"They show no serious signs" of those infected having any threat to their lives, added Buzyn.
Business owners in the Contamines-Montjoie resort have been keen to avoid any exaggerations of the threat as French families prepared to descend on the area for the half-term ski holidays.
Three schools attended by one of the British infected -- the child aged nine -- are closed and 100 have been people tested. All the results have been negative so far.
Similar efforts have been made to track down passengers who took a flight from Geneva -- the closest large airport to Contamines-Montjoie -- with the man when he went back to Britain on January 28.
MALLORCA, SPAIN
One member of the group he stayed with in France then sought medical help after returning to his home in Mallorca. The contamination took place between January 25 and January 29, according to the Spanish authorities.
The man in Mallorca is "currently in good health. He shows practically no symptom," said Fernando Simon, an official from Spain's health ministry.
The Mallorca man's wife and two daughters aged 10 and 7, who were also hospitalized for tests, have shown no sign of infection.
SPEED OF SPREAD SPURS FEARS
Experts said that the speed of the transmission showed the potential for the novel coronavirus to become a global pandemic.
"The recent report of transmission to British nationals in France are a worrying but perhaps not unexpected development," said Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, University of East Anglia.
"This reinforces the fact that transmission is no longer restricted to China. It is still too early to know when and if the epidemic will become pandemic and whether we will see start to see sustained person to person transmission in Europe."
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Agence France-Presse
The French Alps were on maximum avalanche alert Thursday as Storm Eleanor swept through Europe, killing at least four people and fanning rare winter wildfires in Corsica.
With the mountains packed with skiiers for the school holidays, major resort Val d'Isere closed its runs for the day because of heavy snowfall, while Chamonix said it was shutting many of its lifts as a precautionary measure.
"The objective is to keep everyone safe," said David Ponson, ski chief in the Alpine Savoie region, as many pistes were shut for a second day.
At the other extreme, nearly 400 firefighters on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica were battling blazes fanned by Eleanor's strong gusts of wind, with three people injured in a fire overnight.
Three hundred goats were killed in the blaze at Chiatra-Canale di Verde near the island's east coast and 10 homes burnt -- five of them completely destroyed, local authorities said.
The prefecture added that the intensity of the blazes was "exceptional in the middle of winter." Troops from the local airbase have been deployed to help fight the flames.
Eleanor, the fourth winter storm to hit Europe since December, swept into the continent on Wednesday after battering Britain and Ireland.
It has left at least four people dead, including a 21-year-old skiier hit by a falling tree in France and a couple in their 60s swept away on Spain's northern Basque coast by a huge wave.
On Thursday, firefighters said a woman in her 90s died of a heart attack in Crets-en-Belledonne in the French Alps after floods sent a torrent of mud and water into her home.
And a volunteer rescuer was reported missing after rushing to help when a car plunged into an overflowing river in the Alpine village of Le Moutaret.
At Lenk in central Switzerland, eight people were hurt when a violent gust of wind overturned a railway carriage.
- Damage worth millions -
In the Netherlands, Eleanor has dealt about 10 million euros ($12 million) of damage to buildings and cars, the Dutch insurers' union estimated, cited by public television.
The whole of Spain's northern coast remained on "orange" alert -- the second highest on a four-point scale -- because of the risk from strong winds and large waves.
More than 40 towns in southwestern Spain have meanwhile brought forward their annual Epiphany feast parades -- celebrating the coming of the three wise men with gifts for Jesus -- to Thursday because of heavy rain forecast Friday.
The worst of the storm appeared to have passed by Thursday, though much of eastern France was still on "orange" alert for heavy winds, floods and avalanches.
"The intensity of the rain and melting snow bring a risk of floods via overflowing streams and mudslides," warned forecaster Cecile Coleou.
About 29,000 French homes remained without power, a third of them in Corsica.
Germany lowered its alert for violent winds Wednesday evening, but high tides were worrying several states, including in the Moselle Valley where heavy downpours have halted boat traffic.
The Rhine river was set to surge to seven meters (23 feet) on Thursday and was still rising, the Bild newspaper reported. River traffic will be suspended if it hits 8.3 meters.
The storm had snarled air traffic on Wednesday, briefly shutting the Strasbourg and Basel-Mulhouse airports and delaying departures from Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
It also played havoc with road and rail transport, leaving branches, electrical lines and other debris strewn across tracks and highways.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Skiers stranded inside broken down ski gondolas in Chamrousse in the French Alps were rescued by workers via helicopter on Sunday (December 24).
Video shared on social media by those caught up in the incident showed rescuers hanging from ropes from helicopters, swinging back and forth near the stationary bubbles.
Another set of social media videos shows a rescue worker as they approached the stranded skiers, taken by Harriet Morgan, 17, who was stuck inside a gondola.
Her father, Huw Morgan, also stuck on the gondola, told Reuters it was like "a rocking greenhouse", and they were trapped inside for around two hours.
Local media reported that between 150 and 200 people were rescued, with the gondolas 25m above the ground.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
