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SCIENTISTS in Italy have detected coronaviruses in air pollution particles and are now investigating whether the virus can be transported over longer distances and increase the number of infected people.
Italian scientists identified a highly specific gene for Covid-19 in multiple samples of outdoor air pollution they had collected.
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The study, carried out at the University of Bologna in Italy, used samples of outdoor air pollution from an urban and an industrial site in the province of Bergamo.
It was in those samples that they found the specific gene for the deadly virus.
According to The Guardian, the work is preliminary and it is not yet known whether the virus remains viable in contaminating particles and in sufficient quantity to cause disease.
Leonardo Setti, who led the work, said it was important to investigate whether the virus could be transmitted more widely by air pollution.
He said: “I am a scientist and I am concerned when I don’t know. If we know, we can find a solution. But if we don’t know, we can only suffer the consequences.”
Part of Setti’s analysis suggests that higher levels of contamination could explain higher infection rates in parts of northern Italy before the blockade was implemented.
Northern Italy is one of the most polluted areas in Europe.
Previous studies have shown that airborne contamination particles carry microbes and that the contamination is likely to have carried viruses that cause bird flu or FMD over long distances.
The researchers say that airborne transmission of the virus through polluting particles should not be ruled out without evidence.
Professor Jonathan Reid of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom is investigating the transmission of the virus in the air.
Of the study, he said: “Perhaps not surprisingly, while suspended in the air, the tiny droplets can combine with urban background particles and be transported.”
He told The Guardian that the virus had been detected in small droplets collected in the interior of China.
Professor John Sodeau of University College Cork in the Republic of Ireland said: “The work seems plausible. “But that is the end result right now, and plausible [particle] interactions are not always biologically viable and may have no effect on the atmosphere. “
Professor Sodeau said that the normal course of this research could take two to three years to confirm.
Italy remains the third country most affected by the coronavirus in the world.
So far, the number of cases stands at 192,994, of which more than 25,000 resulted in death.
The number of new daily cases continues to decline as the country enters its fourth month to deal with the pandemic.
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