Eurosurv. Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 positive passengers on flights from China to Italy, December 2022

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• Federica Novazzi^1,2,* , Emanuela Giombini^3,* , Martina Rueca³ , Andreina Baj^1,2 , Lavinia Fabeni³ , Angelo Genoni^1,2 , Francesca Drago Ferrante² , Giulia Gramigna³ , Cesare Ernesto Maria Gruber³ , Sara Boutahar² , Claudia Minosse³ , Ornella Butera³ , Renee Pasciuta¹ , Daniele Focosi⁴ , Alberto Colombo¹ , Andrea Antinori³ , Enrico Girardi³ , Francesco Vaia³ , Fabrizio Maggi³

With numbers of COVID-19 cases having substantially increased at the end of 2022 in China, some countries have started or expanded testing and genomic surveillance of travellers. We report screening results in Italy in late December 2022 of 556 flight passengers in provenance from two Chinese provinces. Among these passengers, 126 (22.7%) tested SARS-CoV-2 positive. Whole genome sequencing of 61 passengers’ positive samples revealed Omicron variants, notably sub-lineages BA.5.2.48, BF.7.14 and BQ.1.1, in line with data released from China.

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2023.28.2.2300008#html_fulltext