French COVID-19 outbreak does not come directly from China: Study 

A genetic study done by French scientists revealed that the COVID-19 outbreak in France was caused by a locally circulating strain with unknown origin, rather than cases imported from China or Italy.

The pre-print study, entitled "Introductions and early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in France", was done by researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, a research center at the forefront against infectious disease, and published on biorxiv.org on April 24.

The researchers sequenced 97 genomes from samples collected among infected cases in France between January 24 to March 24, and found that the dominant strain of the outbreak in the country was linked to a genetic group, or clade G, that was not from China or Italy.

"Unlike what is observed for many other European countries, the French outbreak has been mainly seeded by one or several variants of this clade," the study suggested, adding that more thorough sampling will be needed. 

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