INTERVIEW
How do you know if you are affected by coronavirus? The question has arisen since France was hit by the epidemic born in China in December, and particularly in recent days, when a sudden increase in the number of cases has prompted the government to take drastic measures. Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous on Sunday on Europe 1, Professor Alexandre Mignon, specialist in resuscitation at the Cochin hospital in Paris, spoke of a complex situation because many of the people affected have no way of knowing.
>> Find the Grand rendez-vous in podcast and replay here
Children, "the most transmitters"
"There is almost no death in children," said Alexandre Mignon. "Children are probably the most transmitters and most of them are asymptomatic", he continues, recalling that "30 to 50% of the population [sick, editor's note ] carries the virus but asymptomatically. that is, there is no sign. " And the professor underlines the necessity of containment measures, even for people feeling in good health, likely to contaminate the most fragile.
>> LIVE - Coronavirus: follow the situation on Sunday
"Then, there are people who are symptomatic", and who present signs resembling those which characterize "the flu". "They have pain in the muscles, they have a headache, they have a little fever, they have a runny nose, they cough," says the specialist. "And then, finally, there are the serious forms, which are fortunately much rarer but which pose the public health problem for which we hope that France will contain the pandemic as quickly as possible."
Mainly frail people
This last category mainly concerns elderly people, at risk or with co-morbidities. But among the victims of the coronavirus, there are also people under the age of 70, apparently without any health problem. "There are a few, they are not very numerous, in whom we will discover a posteriori risk factors for developing serious forms of the disease, whether they are genetic (...), metabolic or linked to d 'other factors', considers Alexandre Mignon.