Coronavirus present in Italy in December, sewage study confirms
A study has found traces of the new coronavirus disease in sewage in Italy from December, suggesting the virus was already spreading in Italy before China declared its first cases.
Scientists studying wastewater found that samples taken from Milan and Turin on 18 December already contained the virus.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that the virus may have been in wider circulation at an earlier point than previously believed.
Northern Italy was the centre of the initial coronavirus outbreak in the Mediterranean country, which reported its first confirmed case in mid-February.
A patient from the town of Codogno in Lombardy was the country’s first non-imported case, triggering a series of escalating lockdowns first encapsulating the region and then the entire country.
Italy has one of the world’s worst death tolls from the disease, with more than 40,000 people having lost their lives so far.
In a statement, Giuseppina La Rosa of Italy’s National Institute of Health said the findings could help scientists better understand the spread of the virus in the country.
Samples positive for traces of the virus that causes Covid-19 were also found in sewage from Bologna, Milan and Turin in January and February 2020. Samples taken in October and November 2019 tested negative.
However, La Rosa warned that the findings did not “automatically imply that the main transmission chains that led to the development of the epidemic in our country originated from these very first cases”.
Other countries have also been examining sewage for traces of the disease in order to track the virus’ spread.
In Spain, a similar study found traces of the disease in January, some 40 days before the country declared its first cases.