Introductions and early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in France

Following the emergence of COVID-19 disease in Wuhan in December 2019, syndromic surveillance was launched in France on January 10, 2020. Two weeks later, the first three imported cases of COVID-19 in Europe were diagnosed in France.

The National Reference Center for Respiratory Viruses has been contributing to genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 for northern France since the first cases were identified.

A phylogenetic analysis of around a hundred genomes from samples collected from patients in France between January 24 and March 24, 2020 has revealed several early introductions of SARS-CoV-2 without local transmission, emphasizing the efficacy of the measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus from symptomatic cases.

Find out more (in French)