France announced Friday that 50 crew members of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier have been infected with the Corona virus, and that three sailors have been evacuated by air, while the number of injuries on board the American aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt is increasing.
The French army ministry said in a statement that the results of 66 tests had confirmed the presence of 50 HIV infections on board the carrier, 24 hours after the announcement of the suspected injuries, adding that "there has been no exacerbation at the present time of the health status of the sailors present" on board.
The statement pointed out that three sailors were evacuated by air as a precaution to a military hospital in Toulon, southern France, which is the main port of the aircraft carrier.
It is not known how the infection passed to the aircraft carrier sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, especially since it has not been in contact with any outside party since the middle of last month.
The carrier, Charles de Gaulle, became the second aircraft carrier to report cases of the epidemic, after Washington announced the outbreak of the epidemic aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier in the Pacific.
On Thursday, an American sailor was taken from the carrier to the intensive care unit in Guam, while the number of HIV infections on board the carrier jumped to 416.
This came after Thomas Moodley resigned as Acting Secretary of the Navy last Tuesday, following a mounting reaction in Congress and the media to his dismissal and derision of the captain of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Brett Cruiser.
Cruiser had appealed to the Ministry of Defense by saying, "We are not in a state of war, no need to die with sailors." He demanded that the sailors be evacuated immediately and removed for two weeks. After this message leaked to the media, Modley dismissed him, describing Cruzer's decision as "either stupid or naive", and criticized the means Media strongly, which sparked a storm of criticism that prompted him to resign.