Junior Sambia, a prominent player for Montpellier and French football, has been placed into an ‘artificial coma due to the severity of his symptoms’ following a positive test for Coronavirus.
The 23-year-old defensive midfielder is the first player in Ligue 1, the top division in France, to be diagnosed with the virus.
Sambia’s agent revealed that his symptoms became so severe that after he changed hospital, staff made the decision to put him into a coma.
‘His condition is stable this Friday. It has not deteriorated, nor improved,’ his agent Frederic Guerra told Le Parisien.
‘It is tough. He really respected confinement. He did everything well. He must have contracted the virus while shopping.
‘He suffered three days of severe diarrhoea – like gastroenteritis. Then, on Tuesday morning, he went to the hospital. I reached him when he was on an IV.
‘He had just received the COVID-19 test result. This one was negative. He was due to leave on Wednesday, then his condition worsened with his lungs.’
‘It grew more complicated in transit. He went back to the same hospital, then he changed hospitals twice before being placed in an artificial coma.’
Montpellier had earlier released a statement announcing that one of their players had been hospitalised due to ‘digestive and respiratory problems’ but the club did not make any link to the Coronavirus.
Sambia is a defensive midfielder for Montpellier and has made 22 appearances in all competitions for the club this season, netting one goal before the French league was suspended due to the Coronavirus outbreak.