Paris (AFP)

Two of the eleven people hospitalized in France after being contaminated by the new coronavirus are "cured" and left the hospital, and no new case has yet been detected in France, announced on Wednesday the Ministry of Health.

This is the couple of thirty-something Chinese who was hospitalized at the Bichat hospital in Paris, said the ministry's N.2, Jérôme Salomon, during a press conference.

The couple, a 31-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman from Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, were among the first cases on French soil, announced on January 24. They arrived in France on January 18.

They came out of Bichat "smiling" and "satisfied with their care," said Prof. Solomon, according to whom a cured patient requires no particular follow-up.

The exit criteria respond to an "extremely safe protocol" which is the subject of an "international consensus": the symptoms (fever, cough ...) must have disappeared and "two negative tests are required" within 24H to ensure that these patients are no longer contagious.

Other exits among the first cases will occur "in the coming days", according to Professor Salomon.

After these two discharges, nine patients remain hospitalized in France: one in Bordeaux, two in Bichat (including an 80-year-old Chinese in a still "severe" state) and one at the Pitié Salpêtrière in Paris, plus the five British who were contaminated by a compatriot in a chalet in Contamines-Montjoie (Haute-Savoie).

The 61 tests carried out in Haute-Savoie are negative, and there is no "chain of transmission" which is installed from people contaminated by the British, welcomed Professor Salomon.

"As a precaution", however, three schools remain closed and "many people remain in home confinement".

In addition, all the tests were also negative for the 216 French quarantined in a holiday center of Carry-le-Rouet, about thirty kilometers from Marseille, since their repatriation from Wuhan.

"Everything is going well for them and they are preparing for the end of their fortnight" (14-day confinement period, editor's note), said Jérôme Salomon.

The 180 people who arrived in the first plane on January 31 will leave Friday, followed by those who arrived on February 2 on Sunday.

In addition, some 80 people placed in confinement since February 2 at the National School of Firefighting Officers (Ensosp) in Aix-en-Provence will also leave Sunday, according to Pr Salomon. There are French and nationals of fifteen other nationalities.

"All of these people have been tested several times," he said.

Thirty-five other French people have also been in these Aix premises since their repatriation on February 9. They have "all been tested negative" and will be "tested again in the coming days," concluded Prof. Solomon.

The disease caused by the new coronavirus, now named "Covid-19" by the World Health Organization (WHO), has killed 1,113 people in China, according to Chinese health authorities, out of a total of 44,653 infected people listed in China mainland.

Outside China, nearly 500 cases of contamination and two deaths have been confirmed in around 30 countries and territories.

© 2020 AFP