Located in Terre-Adélie, the Dumont d’Urville base saw 20 of the 21 occupants recently contract the coronavirus, indicates “The Huff Post”.
Par LePoint.fr
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Un cluster of Covid-19 at the end of the world. As reported Le Huff Post, scientists and technical staff at the French base Dumont d’Urville, in Antarctica, were infected with Covid-19 even though they had been spared the pandemic throughout the year. The Terre-Adélie district chief, Jean-Philippe Guérin, announced on Tuesday November 8 that 20 of the 21 members of the team of experts have been infected.
“We suspected that the Antarctic bubble in which we had been living for almost a year was going to end one day. (…) We suspected that our voluntary self-containment and therefore its reassuring medical protection, would not pass the end of the year 2022. We suspected well… And yet, we took it in the face ! “, deciphered Jean-Philippe Guérin in a blog article spotted by our colleagues.
The Covid-19 epidemic was triggered on the base after a positive case arrived there by plane on October 25. “In just two short weeks, 20 out of 21 winterers contracted it in its symptomatic form. For the 21st, we still hesitate: Not had? Asymptomatic? he wonders.
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Positive cases “dropped like flies”
While the scientists present in Antarctica have not been confronted with viruses, and in particular Covid-19, for more than a year, the cluster has developed at high speed. “Happened on bodies tired at the end of wintering, immunosuppressed because they had not seen a virus for more than a year, the effect was explosive. The wintering braves have dropped like flies! », stresses Jean-Philippe Guérin.
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While the wearing of a surgical mask was quickly put in place on the base, no serious cases were identified there. “No serious form at this stage requiring oxygen, but great fatigue, temperature, runny noses, itchy throats, coughing lungs”, further specified the district head of Terre-Adélie .
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This is not the first time that Antarctica has been affected by the coronavirus. In 2020, around 40 cases had been detected on a Chilean base while 11 of the 30 occupants of the Belgian Princess Elisabeth research station had been affected. In January 2022, 24 positive cases were also registered on the Argentinian Esperanza research base.