UK coronavirus victim infected five more Britons in France

Five Britons, including a nine-year-old child, who were staying in a chalet at a French ski resort have been diagnosed with coronavirus.

They tested positive after sharing lodgings in Les Contamines-Montjoie with a man who is believed to have contracted the disease in Singapore, said France’s health ministry.

He is a fellow Briton who was in the Alpine village in late January and later confirmed to have the virus after returning to the UK.

The man is now being treated at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, Sky News understands, and is the third confirmed case in Britain.

All five new victims in France were part of a group of 11 Britons who were in the same chalet.

They were taken to hospital overnight in the Savoie region and are not in a serious condition.

The six other people who came into contact with the virus carrier were also taken to hospitals in Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Grenoble.

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There were three children in the group of 11. Among them was a nine-year-old child who recently spent time in a school in Les Contamines-Montjoie – a mountain village of which he was also a resident.

French authorities will close two schools next week in the area near the ski resort.

The British national who is thought to have infected the five in France was in Singapore on 20-23 January, then stayed in the area in eastern France for four days from 24 January, before returning to England on 28 January.

The man is thought to have visited Brighton, where today it emerged that a school student has been told to self-isolate for 14 days.

In a message sent to parents, the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA) said the pupil was staying at home and that the school would be notified should they start to present symptoms.

The French government has been in touch with Singapore and the UK, and Singapore authorities are looking into a business congress that took place in a hotel last month, which was attended by 94 foreigners.

The British man who has tested positive for coronavirus had travelled to that meeting.

A UK company called Servomex has said a number of its workers in different countries have been diagnosed with the coronavirus and are now being treated.

Need a catch-up? Here’s the latest on the coronavirus:

• The global death toll is 724. 722 were in China, including a Japanese man and a US citizen, and one in the Philippines and Hong Kong
• More than 34,000 people have been infected around the world, almost all in China
• A British family of four is being tested in Majorca after coming into contact with a coronavirus sufferer in France
• Thousands remain stranded on cruise ships docked in Japan and Hong Kong
• The World Health Organisation warns of a chronic shortage of gowns, masks, gloves and other protective gear
• A WHO-led international team investigating the outbreak will leave for China on Monday or Tuesday
• British citizens being flown back from Wuhan on Sunday will be quarantined at a facility in Milton Keynes

The global death toll from the ongoing outbreak is approaching the number of people killed by the 2002-03 SARS epidemic, which was 774.

Some 81 new fatalities have been recorded in Hubei province in China, where Wuhan – the sprawling city where the infection was first reported after Christmas – is located.

The number of new infections rose on Friday from a day earlier, Chinese health officials said, reversing two days of declines and showing the difficulty of predicting the epidemic’s peak.

China has rushed to build two new hospitals in Wuhan to cope with the crisis, with the second becoming operational from Saturday.

But demand continues to outstrip supply for beds and medical attention, forcing the city’s special anti-virus command to renovate a school facility and four colleges into temporary hospitals.

There are three confirmed cases in the UK.

They are a man believed to have caught the virus in Singapore and two people who were diagnosed in York and are now at a specialist hospital unit in Newcastle.

Other British cases have been reported abroad, including a passenger, Alan Steele, 58, on the stranded Diamond Princess cruise ship which has been quarantined off the coast of Japan.

About 3,700 passengers and crew are being kept at the port city of Yokohama, about 25 miles from Tokyo, with the operator Princess Cruises hoping the quarantine will end on 19 February barring “unforeseen developments”.

(c) Sky News 2020: UK coronavirus victim infected five more Britons in France