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COVID-19

Coronavirus was spreading in Italy as far back as September 2019, researchers claim

Covid-19 was spreading in Italy as early as September 2019, a new study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) in Milan has suggested.

Coronavirus was spreading in Italy as far back as September 2019, researchers claim
A medical worker takes a nasal swab from a woman at a drive-through Covid-19 screening area at the San Carlo hospital in Milan. AFP

The findings suggest the virus had spread to Europe fro China far earlier than first thought.

Italy’s first Covid-19 patient was officially identified on February 21st in a small town in the northern region of Lombardy.

IN GRAPHS: Track the spread of coronavirus in every region of Italy

But the study by the National Cancer Institute in Milan suggests the virus pay have been present in the region months earlier.

Reuters reports that Italian researchers’ found that 11.6% of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed coronavirus antibodies well before the first Covid-19 patient was identified.

A further SARS-CoV-2 antibodies test carried out by the University of Siena showed that four cases dating back to the first week of October were positive for antibodies, meaning they had first become infected in September, Giovanni Apolone, a co-author of the study, told Reuters.

“This is the main finding: people with no symptoms not only were positive after the serological tests but also had antibodies able to kill the virus,” Apolone said.

“It means that the new coronavirus can circulate among the population for a long time and with a low rate of lethality, not because it is disappearing, only to surge again,” he told the news agency.

Italian researchers told Reuters in March that they reported a higher than usual number of cases of severe pneumonia and flu in Lombardy in the last quarter of 2019 in a sign that the new coronavirus might have circulated earlier than thought.

Separately, studies of Italian waste water appear to show that the virus was circulating in December in parts of northern Italy.
 
In February, medical experts in Milan said they believed the virus had already been “circulating unnoticed for weeks” in Italy.
 
Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region has been at the centre of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak since the beginning.
 
Lombardy was the hardest-hit area during the first wave, and with cases now surging again in Italy the Lombardy region continues to report the highest number of new cases in the country, with around 8,000 new infections daily.
 
Lombardy has been declared a “red zone” and placed under the toughest coronavirus restrictions provided for by Italy’s current tiered system.

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HEALTH

Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The World Health Organization's European office warned on Tuesday the risk of Covid-19 has not gone away, saying it was still responsible for nearly 1,000 deaths a week in the region. And the real figure may be much higher.

Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The global health body on May 5 announced that the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer deemed a “global health emergency.”

“Whilst it may not be a global public health emergency, however, Covid-19 has not gone away,” WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge told reporters.

The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries, including several in central Asia.

“Close to 1,000 new Covid-19 deaths continue to occur across the region every week, and this is an underestimate due to a drop in countries regularly reporting Covid-19 deaths to WHO,” Kluge added, and urged authorities to ensure vaccination coverage of at least 70 percent for vulnerable groups.

Kluge also said estimates showed that one in 30, or some 36 million people, in the region had experienced so called “long Covid” in the last three years, which “remains a complex condition we still know very little about.”

“Unless we develop comprehensive diagnostics and treatment for long Covid, we will never truly recover from the pandemic,” Kluge said, encouraging more research in the area which he called an under-recognised condition.

Most countries in Europe have dropped all Covid safety restrictions but some face mask rules remain in place in certain countries in places like hospitals.

Although Spain announced this week that face masks will no longer be required in certain healthcare settings, including hospitals and pharmacies, with a couple of exceptions.

Sweden will from July 1st remove some of its remaining Covid recommendations for the public, including advice to stay home and avoid close contact with others if you’re ill or have Covid symptoms.

The health body also urged vigilance in the face of a resurgence of mpox, having recorded 22 new cases across the region in May, and the health impact of heat waves.

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