-COVID-19 was circulating in Italy from September 2019, according to a study by the Italian National Cancer Institute.
-Italy’s first official COVID-19 case was detected on February 21st.
-The new study which re-examined samples from a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020, suggests otherwise.
-It showed that of the 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in the trial, 11% had developed coronavirus antibodies well before February.
-A study by the University of Siena also supports this theory.
-The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy since September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, signaling that COVID-19 might have spread beyond China earlier than previously thought.
-The World Health Organization has said the new coronavirus and COVID-19, the respiratory disease it causes, were unknown before the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, in central China, in December.
Coronavirus: When was the first COVID-19 case in Italy? | World Economic Forum
This article is published in collaboration with Reuters
16 Nov 2020
Giselda Vagnoni
Journalist, Reuters