Italy’s sewage water review suggests COVID-19 was there before China
20 June, 2020
Scientists in Italy experience found traces of the new coronavirus found in wastewater collected from Milan and Turin in December 2019 - suggesting COVID-19 had been circulating found in Northern Italy before China reported the first of all cases.
The Italian National Institute of Overall health viewed 40 sewage samples collected from wastewater treatment plants in northern Italy between October 2019 and February 2020. An examination released later on Thursday explained samples taken in Milan and Turin on Dec. 18 confirmed the presence of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
“This research may help us understand the beginning of virus circulation in Italy,” Giuseppina La Rosa, a specialist in environmental wastewater at the Italian National Institute of Health who co-led the study, said in a statement detailing the findings.
Small analyses conducted by scientific teams on holland, France, Australia and elsewhere have found signals that the virus that triggers COVID-19 could be detected on sewage, and several countries are beginning to use wastewater sampling to track the distributed of the disease.
La Rosa said the detection of traces of the virus prior to the end of 2019 was constant with evidence emerging in other countries that COVID-19 may have been circulating before China reported the first cases of a fresh disease on Dec. 31.
A study in-may by French scientists discovered that a guy was infected with COVID-19 as soon as December 27, almost per month before France confirmed its first cases.
La Rosa said the presence of the virus in the Italian waste samples didn't “automatically imply that the key transmission chains that resulted in the production of the epidemic in our country comes from these very first cases”.
Samples great 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.
The institute said it plans to start a pilot study in July to screen wastewater at sites recognized in tourist resorts.
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