Wastewater Research Reveals Corona Has Entered Italy Long Before The First Case Was Announced

JAKARTA - Research by Italian scientists has revealed that the new corona virus has entered since December, before the first cases were announced in February. The research samples were taken from wastewater from several factories in Italy.

Quoting the BBC, the National Institutes of Health (ISS) from Milan and Turin showed that the virus' trace genes had been around since 18 December. This adds to the evidence also from other countries that the virus that causes the corona virus disease (COVID-19) may have circulated much earlier than expected.

Previously, this COVID-19 case was first reported from its epicenter, Wuhan, China in late December. Meanwhile, entered Italy in mid-February.

The ISS study examined 40 samples collected from a wastewater treatment plant in northern Italy between October and February. In the period from October to November, the samples still showed no signs of the virus. The wastewater only started showing traces of the virus in January.

The findings could help scientists understand how the virus started spreading in Italy, said ISS Water Specialist Giuseppina La Rosa. But he said the research did not "automatically imply that the chain of spread of the virus that became epidemic in the Italian country stemmed from these first cases," he said.

The first known non-imported virus case in Italy was a patient in the city of Codogno, Lombardy. The city was closed and declared a red zone on February 21.

The virus then began spreading to nine other cities around Lombardy and Veneto, leading to Italy's lockdown in early March. At least more than 40,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Italy.

The ISS said that research that takes water waste as an indicator can be duplicated to other countries to find out when the new corona virus actually entered. They themselves will continue their research by monitoring the discharge of wastewater in July.

Italy is not the only country that has revised the findings of the first inclusion of COVID-19. In May, French scientists said the results of tests on a patient being treated for suspected pneumonia near Paris on December 27, actually had COVID-19. Meanwhile in Spain a study found traces of the corona virus 40 days before the first case was found.