Camilla Rothe (born 20 September 1974 in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

) is a German

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and tropical medicine specialist. She diagnosed the first confirmed case of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and her scientific work helped confirm that the virus could be transmitted asymptomatically.

Education

Camilla Rothe grew up in

, where she attended the Kurfürst Friedrich Gymnasium and graduated at the top of her class. She studied medicine from 1994 to 2001 in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. She worked as an assistant doctor at the

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...

, where she graduated as a specialist in internal medicine in 2008. In the same year she completed her doctorate. From 2009 to 2013 she worked at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital

Blantyre Blantyre () is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an enumerated 800,264 inhabitants . It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, L ...

, in the south of

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast ...

. On her return, she continued to specialize in tropical medicine at the Bernhard Nocht Institute in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. From there she moved to the LMU Klinikum in Munich.

Work on COVID-19

On 27 January 2020, Rothe diagnosed the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Germany. It was evident that the infection had come from a Chinese traveler who visited Germany without noticing any symptoms of the disease. Rothe and Michael Hölscher published this discovery on 30 January in ''

The New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. His ...

''. Her published report was initially met with disbelief and denial. Thus began a two-month scientific dispute about when the disease can be transmitted from person to person, which ended with the confirmation of their findings. In 2020, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' named her one of the 100 most influential people of the year. Professor of molecular medicine

Eric Topol Eric Jeffrey Topol (born 26 June 1954) is an American cardiologist, scientist, and author. He is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, a professor of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute, and a ...

wrote that "her discovery has saved countless lives".

Publications

* ''Clinical Cases in Tropical Medicine''. Saunders, Philadelphia 2014. .

References

German tropical physicians German women physicians 1974 births 21st-century German women scientists Living people COVID-19 pandemic in Germany Physicians from Baden-Württemberg Physicians from Heidelberg {{COVID-19-stub