Prof dr Zoran Radovanovic, an epidemiologist, said on Monday that 'Frontiers in Medicine' magazine reported that the first victim of COVID-19 was a man in Serbia who 'didn't die from the disease but with it' on February 5th.

Earlier, it was believed that the first COVID-19-related deaths were recorded in France on January 24th and February 25th, 2020 respectively, but the case in Serbia was confirmed both by „means of postmortem histopathological and molecular analyses.“

In his article for the Belgrade Danas daily, Radovanovic recalled that Serbia’s first infection case was diagnosed „on March 1st or 6th, depending on who and how reported.“

However, he said that the postmortem analysis proved the man, a homeless, was positive for the new virus.

„This happened for the first time in this pandemic on February 5th at the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the Belgrade Medical Faculty. A group of 12 experts from this institution analysed routinely taken tissue samples from one homeless man. The diagnosis of COVID-19 was made by examining fluid from the structure of the eye known as the vitreous. The rule is to prove the causative agent’s presence by two different techniques. In this case, the experts used histopathological and molecular methods,“ Radovanovic explained.

He added that the ‘Frontiers in Medicine’ magazine published the postmortem analysis by Belgrade experts, saying it was „the first death in Europe proven to be caused by COVID-19.“

„In Europe, the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the first COVID-19-related death were reported in France on January 24th and February 15th, 2020, respectively. Officially, the first case of COVID-19 infection in the Republic of Serbia was registered on March 6th. Herein, we presented the first case of retrospective detection of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the postmortem-obtained vitreous humour (VH), which took place on February 5th, 2020. This is the first death in Europe proven to be caused by COVID-19 by means of postmortem histopathological and molecular analyses. Based on this finding, it appears that SARS-CoV-2 has been spreading faster and started spreading much earlier than it had been considered and that COVID-19 was probably the cause of many reported pneumonia of unknown origin in January and February 2020,“ the first part of the article read.

Radovanovic also said the autopsies of people who died from COVID-19 were not preformed in Serbia, but that it was logical that did not exclude the possibility of discovering the causes of death from the tissues of a corpse suspected to have been infected.

He added the man did not die from COVID-19, but with it, and that he was most probably infected by the end of January.

„Why the virus ‘waited’ for a month? Some of the first patients were possibly diagnosed with the flu. There is a possibility of one virus suppressing another, known as interference. That phenomenon exists at the individual level, and it’s doubtful one can contact both measles and chickenpox at the same time… From there, for example, epidemic waves of respiratory infections caused by rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial viruses and influenza agents change,“ Radovanovic wrote.

However, he added, it was still in the sphere of speculations, and that serious analysis was needed for a real answer.