Overview
- The patients were hospitalized as a precaution and are in stable condition, according to Health Minister Stéphanie Rist.
- The infections were confirmed after suggestive symptoms in travelers who took the same recent trip to the Arabian Peninsula.
- Health teams have launched contact tracing, testing, isolation and barrier measures for close contacts and healthcare workers.
- Other participants from the trip are under follow-up, and no secondary transmission has been identified in France so far.
- MERS‑CoV, first detected in 2012 and largely zoonotic with reservoirs in dromedaries and certain bats, has seen 2,640 global cases recorded as of November 3, 2025 and is considered less transmissible but more lethal than SARS.