20 sailors hospitalised after French navy coronavirus outbreak

Phenomenal Published April 16, 2020

Last updated: 2020/04/16 at 5:49 PM

WUHAN, CHINA - FEBRUARY 13 2020: Two medical personnel work in the patients' ward in Jinyintan Hospital, designated for critical COVID-19 patients, in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. The city reported 13,436 new cases of COVID-19 Feb. 12, a big jump after the city combed communities for patients and expanded the capacity to take them in.- PHOTOGRAPH BY Feature China / Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

French sailors were hospitalised following a large outbreak of the coronavirus in the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle’s naval group.

A spokesman for the French navy said on Thursday.

“There are about 20 at the moment in hospital. Out of the 20, one is in the re-animation ward and in a stable case,’’ spokesman Eric Lavault said.

On Wednesday, the French Armed Forces Ministry said 1,767 marines nearly all from the Charles de Gaulle carrier itself being evaluated and at least 668 had tested positive for the virus.

The Charles de Gaulle set sail for the eastern Mediterranean on Jan. 21, to support French military operations against Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria, before deploying to the Atlantic and then the Baltic.

There it participated in exercises with northern European navies in the Baltic Sea before returning to Toulon two weeks earlier than planned after crew members showed signs of COVID-19 symptoms.