Much less present to date than its British counterpart, the so-called “South African” variant of the coronavirus is slowly beginning to interfere in France.
As of January 14, health authorities announced that they had diagnosed four cases infected with this strain, also called variant 501.V2, and deemed more contagious than the form of Covid-19 known so far.
Among them, a case in Val-de-Marne, another in the Nantes region as well as two more isolated contaminations, including one linked to the return from South Africa of an inhabitant of Haut-Rhin announced on December 31.
On Saturday, another case was detected in Mayotte and a last this Sunday on Reunion Island, in a patient currently in intensive care.
A trip to Mozambique during the month of December may well have sped up some of the future transmissions diagnosed.
It all started last Thursday, when the Directorate General of Health announced, very cautiously, to conduct investigations around "two groups of cases at risk on the national territory".
Val-de-Marne: a woman "in intensive care"
The first patient is a "person returning from a trip to Mozambique and residing in the department of Val-de-Marne", specify the health authorities, adding that his contamination with the variant was confirmed after a sequencing carried out by the National Center of reference (CNR) for respiratory infections.
Without specifying the date on which the screening was carried out, the Directorate General of Health emphasizes that "as soon as the results of the PCR test are known (...) all the measures of isolation and identification of the contact persons at risk have been implemented. implemented ”.
The same day, during a press conference on the strengthening of sanitary measures, the Minister of Health adopts a somewhat more worried tone: he announces that the patient is a woman "hospitalized in intensive care in a very serious condition in a hospital in Île-de-France ”.
“She stayed for ten days in Mozambique during the month of December, as part of a trip from a religious congregation,” explains Olivier Véran.
He describes a variant "probably more contagious than the virus which circulates traditionally", but "at this stage we have no reason to believe that it can cause serious forms", he adds, lamenting the reduced number. of "scientific data on the symptoms it can cause".
After the positive test of this woman, health investigations continued to search for contact cases and, according to the minister, "several positive cases in her close entourage and in particular in her family were identified and all the people were isolated" .
People at risk "in other regions"
This woman from Val-de-Marne is not the only one to have taken part in this trip, which would have been organized in Mozambique by an Evangelical Church.
"It already appears that contact persons at risk could live in other departments of Ile-de-France, as well as in other regions", warned Thursday the Directorate General of Health.
She describes a second case probably linked to this stay, this time in the Nantes region, assuring that there too "the person probably contracted the virus during a trip to Mozambique during the end of year celebrations" and announces the discovery in the wake of "secondary cases, within the family home".
To insist on the link with this stay in Mozambique, the DGS underlines that "this case is probably to be linked to the other cases identified in Ile-de-France", but again, without specifying the date on which this primary case could be diagnostic.
According to our colleagues from Presse Océan, it is a mother of a family from Mozambique who is part of the Evangelical Church.
She would have been the only one in her household to make this trip.
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The next day, Friday, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of the Pays de la Loire provided more information on this Nantes cluster.
First, this case is indeed linked to the South African virus, as "the National Reference Center (CNR) for Respiratory Viruses has just confirmed (it) to the Regional Health Agency of Pays de la Loire", indicates the press release, which adds that "investigations are continuing to ensure control of the transmission chain".
A few hours later, the situation worsens.
These investigations "made it possible to identify 12 people positive for COVID-19 among the family and the entourage", announces the Agency.
Massive tests in Île-de-France
Confirmation that these are variant-related cases will take a little while, but these samples have been sent to the National Reference Center.
And measures have been put in place: "The ARS is doing everything to ensure that these people respect isolation in order to stop this chain of contamination", writes the agency which says "consider additional screening".
The Pays de la Loire ARS has not given any more information at this stage on these new tests which could be carried out in the entourage of this woman contaminated by the variant.
But in Île-de-France, a massive screening operation has already been carried out over the weekend in several cities, as our colleagues from France Bleu report.
“The ARS Ile-de-France is launching a large-scale epidemiological investigation, which will include, as was the case in Bagneux
(for a case linked to the British variant)
last week, through screening operations in all collective places where people at risk of contact evolve, ”the Directorate General of Health warned Thursday.
At least three schools or high schools targeted
She specified that this would require "the mobilization of significant resources", in order to identify and test "all of the people who may have been in contact with the person carrying the variant strain, in France or during her trip abroad" .
According to France Bleu, as of Friday tests were carried out in five schools in Ile-de-France which could have received children considered as contact cases.
Thus, screening operations were carried out in Val-de-Marne: in Maisons-Alfort, where a contact case is educated at the Paul-Bert high school and in Bonneuil-sur-Marne, where another was detected within the group Henri-Arlès school.
Parents and their children were invited to be diagnosed via letters in their mailbox, a note in the student notebooks, or on social networks.
Other operations were carried out over the weekend in Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne), as well as Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), where another contact case was attending the Jeanne d'Arc school.
It is not yet known this Sunday if positive cases for the coronavirus have been detected and even less if they can be linked to the South African variant, which may take several more days.