Italian scientists believe a four-year-old Italian boy contracted covid-1 cont until November last year, in a search that could dramatically write a timeline for the spread of the disease.
The discovery suggests the coronavirus was circulating in Italy much earlier than expected – the epidemic was not officially detected by the end of February.
It could fundamentally change the understanding of when the virus entered Europe from China, where it is believed to have originated. Until now, it was believed that the earliest case in Europe was a 43-year-old Frenchman from Paris who fell ill in late December.
“This discovery is important because it expands our knowledge on the timing and mapping of SARS-CV-2 transmission routes,” the researchers said.
“The long-term, unrecognized spread of stork-cov-2 in northern Italy will, at least in part, help explain the devastating effects of the first wave of COVID-19 in Lombardy and the rapid course.”
The little boy, from a town near Milan in the Lombardy region, began to feel sick on November 21 with flu-like symptoms and rashes, and was initially thought to be suffering from measles.
But then the presence of the Covid-19 virus was revealed in a swab taken in December, according to a study by Milan State University that was published in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
It indicates that the boy is a true “zero patient” in Italy, instead a middle-aged man from North Codogno who contracted Covid-11 in February.
Swab was one of the pre-tested tests by researchers who began the study by suggesting that many patients who were thought to be suffering from measles were not actually sick, indicating that they had contracted something else.
These findings would delay the emergence of Covid-19 in Italy in three months, the first Western country to be hard hit by the virus.
The boy did not travel abroad when he fell ill, indicating that he had contracted him to Italy.
This research is likely to be captured by China, which aggressively insists on the theory that the virus did not occur in Wuhan.
Beijing has been accused by the international community of covering exactly when and where the virus came from.
This discovery does not mean that the virus was not intended in China – simply because it flowed before it was thought to be there and then brought to Italy.
Northern Italy, with its fashion, furniture, car and design fields, has strong travel and trade relations with China.
The first known Covid-19 case in Italy was reported on February 21, 2020 in the town of Cododno in the Lombardy region. However, some evidence suggests that acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CV-2) did not go unnoticed. For several weeks in Lombardy before the first official investigation, “the scientists wrote in their paper.
“Philogenetic studies have shed light on the early circulation of SARS-CO-2 in Italy and suggest several introductions of the virus from China and Germany, followed by .Th th thons transmission.”
Last month, a study suggested the virus could have entered Italy as early as September last year, while a third study found traces of the virus in sewer water not found in Milan and Turin in December.
Italy’s coronavirus death toll is now close to 62,000 – the second highest in Europe after the UK.
