The first Berlin corona patient showed atypical symptoms
The first Berlin corona patient was diagnosed "by accident" on Sunday. The young man, who claims that he had suffered from cold symptoms for a few weeks, got a travel vaccination at the Tropical Medicine Center in Berlin-Mitte on Saturday. During the night on Sunday, his condition worsened a lot, he looked disoriented. His roommates therefore informed the ambulance service that brought him to the Charité.
The medical director responsible for medical care there, Ulrich Frei, told the press that the positive corona test was a "coincidence". Because the complaints with which the young man had been brought in did not indicate an infection with the new virus: he was
feverish, complained of
body aches and still looked
disoriented.
Charité employees initially
suspected meningitis, then tested for influenza. Since the infections in North Rhine-Westphalia last week, however, the Charité has been testing the coronavirus as standard if it is suspected of having influenza. That now benefited the young man. "Without this internal regulation of running a parallel test, the patient would still be undetected at home," says Frei.
The patient had already been sent home on Sunday afternoon when the influenza test returned negative. In the evening the surprise: Sars-CoV-2. The clinic then informed the responsible health department, which sent an official doctor to the infected person, who was then taken back to the clinic. The health department finally identified 60 contact persons of the young man who are currently being tested for the coronavirus and quarantined them, including eight Charité employees.
It is not known where the patient was infected.
Die Infektion des jungen Mannes wurde nur entdeckt, weil die Berliner Charité standardmäßig bei jedem Influenza-Test auch auf das neuartige Virus Sars-CoV-2 testet.
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