An Italian study says a four-year-old boy in Milan contracted COVID-19 in November last year, which complicates the actual timeline of the pandemic.
A four-year-old Italian boy with no travel history contracted COVID-19 in November last year, said Italian scientists in a new study, which could change the timeline of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a study by the University of Milan, the scientists noted that they found coronavirus in a specimen from the boy who lived in the surrounding area of Milan.
The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than a million people worldwide, was believed to have started in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The new research may change the timeline of the pandemic as it suggests that COVID-19 was already spreading in Italy before the viral outbreak was first confirmed by China.
According to official records, Italy registered its first two COVID-19 cases, when two Chinese tourists tested positive in Rome on January 30, 2020. Italy's first domestic case of COVID-19 was detected in Lombardy in late February.
The new analysis can be instrumental in understanding the impact of the pandemic in north Italy.
"Long-term, unrecognised spread of Sars-CoV-2 in northern Italy would help explain, at least in part, the devastating impact and rapid course of the first wave in Lombardy," the researchers noted in the study.
According to the research, the boy in question fell ill on November 21 and had a rash along with flu-like symptoms. On December 5, a swab was taken from his throat to check for measles diagnosis.
The swab later revealed the presence of coronavirus, which may mean that the boy was Italy's "patient zero".
This sample was among 39 tested by scientists retrospectively for patients who were thought to have measles but tested negative for it.
This would make the emergence of the COVID-19 infections in Italy three months earlier than its first reported coronavirus case. It does not mean though that the virus originated in Italy.
It is likely that it originated in China and passed on to north Italy, which has travel and trade links with the Asian nation.
The environmental surveillance revealed that the traces of coronavirus were found in the untreated wastewater in Milan as early as mid-December in 2019.
"Further studies aimed at detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA in archived samples suitable for whole-genome sequencing will be crucial at determining exactly the timeline of the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy and will be helpful for the preparedness against future epidemics," the study published by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.
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