The first known native case from Italy was discovered in mid-February. (File)
Rome, Italy:
The coronavirus was already present in two large cities in northern Italy in December, more than two months before the detection of the first case, according to a study by the national health institute on wastewater.
Researchers discovered genetic traces of Sars-Cov-2 – as the virus is officially known – in samples of wastewater collected in Milan and Turin late last year, and in Bologna in January, said the ISS institute in a press release. Friday by AFP.
The first known native case from Italy was discovered in mid-February.
The results “help to understand the beginning of the circulation of the virus in Italy”, according to the ISS.
They also “confirmed the now consolidated international evidence” of the strategic function of sewer samples as an early detection tool, he added.
Italy was the first European country affected by the virus and the first in the world to impose a national ban. The first known case, with the exception of a few visiting Chinese tourists, was a patient from the town of Codogno, in Lombardy.
On February 21, the government designated Codogno as a so-called red zone and ordered it to close, followed by nine other cities across Lombardy and Veneto. In early March, it extended the closure of the whole country.
Italy has recorded more than 34,500 deaths.
Giuseppina La Rosa, water quality expert at the ISS, and her team examined 40 samples of wastewater from October 2019 to February 2020.
The results, confirmed in two different laboratories by two different methods, showed the presence of SARS-Cov-2 in samples taken in Milan and Turin on December 18, 2019 and in Bologna on January 29, 2020.
The October and November 2019 samples were negative, showing that the virus had not yet arrived, La Rosa said.
Given the large number of coronavirus cases with few or no symptoms, sewage testing may signal the presence of the virus even before the first cases are clinically confirmed in areas not affected by the epidemic or where it has ebbed.
The ISS said it urged the Ministry of Health to regularly coordinate the collection of samples in sewers and at the entrance to sewage treatment plants “as a tool to detect and monitor the circulation of the virus in different territories at a stage precocious “.
It is launching a pilot study on the priority sites identified in tourist resorts in July and is expected to set up a national wastewater monitoring network by the fall.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
