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Milan cancer institute: "The coronavirus in Italy since September 2019"

Gert van der Hoek

Gert van der Hoek

In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
Analysis of blood samples on nearly a thousand patients who had participated in lung cancer screening revealed the presence of specific antibodies five months before the discovery of the first patient with Covid-19

NOVEMBER 15, 2020
The SarsCov2 virus was circulating in Italy as early as September 2019, well before what has been hypothesized so far. The confirmation comes from a study by the Cancer Institute of Milan and the University of Siena, which has as its first signatory the scientific director Giovanni Apolone, published in the "Tumori Journal".​

Analyzing the samples of 959 people, all asymptomatic, who had participated in lung cancer screenings between September 2019 and March 2020, 11.6% of these people had antibodies to the coronavirus, of which 14% as early as September , 30% in the second week of February 2020, and the largest number (53.2%) in Lombardy.​



The study was possible precisely because the researchers decided to go and find the possible presence of specific antibodies in the blood samples taken from 959 people and thus trace the appearance, frequency and temporal and geographical variations of SarsCov2 infection in various Italian regions.​

The results, i.e. the presence of these antibodies in 111 patients, show that the SarsCov2 virus began to circulate in Italy asymptomatically several months before the first Covid-19 patient was identified in February in Codogno - Mattia, the famous patient 1 for whom it seemed impossible to reconstruct the chain of contagion - and clarifies the emergence and spread of the pandemic virus, 'rewriting' the history of the epidemic.

​
 
Coronavirus emerged in Italy earlier than thought, Italian study shows

OME (Reuters) - 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.

Italy’s first COVID-19 patient was detected on Feb. 21 in a little town near Milan, in the northern region of Lombardy.

But the Italian researchers’ findings, published by the INT’s scientific magazine Tumori Journal, show 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 February.

A further specific SARS-CoV-2 antibodies test was carried out by the University of Siena for the same research titled “Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the pre-pandemic period in Italy”.

It showed that four cases dated back to the first week of October were also positive for antibodies neutralizing the virus, meaning they had got infected in September, Giovanni Apolone, a co-author of the study, told Reuters.

READ MORE
 
Covid cases may have been present in Italy since September 2019

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...us-italy-anitbodies-covid-study-b1723243.html

Coronavirus was present in Italy months before its outbreak is known to have started, according to new research.

Scientists have found Covid-19 antibodies in blood samples from as early as September last year.

The findings “may reshape the history of the pandemic”, they said.

Italy reported its first coronavirus cases in late January, after which an outbreak swept through the country, hitting northern areas such as the Lombardy region particularly hard.

Traces of coronavirus have also shown up in Italy’s water from December last year – suggesting the virus was circulating more than a month before the country’s first confirmed infection.
Click to expand...
..snip
 
The technique used was developed in-house by the Int researchers themselves and looks for antibodies in the biological samples that can recognize the Rbd domain of the Sars-Cov-2 spike protein. The test, however, is only described in an article in the preprint, which means that it has not yet passed the scrutiny of the scientific community. The experts who are commenting on the study in these hours raise doubts about the specificity of the test of the colleagues of the Int: other recently published investigations have in fact highlighted how antibodies against other coronaviruses (those that cause common colds) can also react to different domains (including Rbd) of the Sars-Cov-2 spike protein. About 10% of the global population would therefore have a non-specific response to the new coronavirus.

https://www.wired.it/scienza/medicina/2020/11/16/coronavirus-arrivo-italia-dubbi/
 
China official response to the Milan paper. As far as I know, no independent W.H.O. observer was invited to the original outbreak location, at the time of the outbreak, before the seafood market was cleaned, or to either China lab that was experimenting with bats and coronaviruses in Wuhan.



Research says that the new coronavirus has spread in Italy in September last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded

2020-11-17 16:29 Author: Yang Yi Zhu hole if the dream Lu Yuan


According to the news of the CCTV news client, at the regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today (17th), a reporter asked: A new study by the National Cancer Institute in Milan, Italy showed that the new crown virus began to spread in Italy in September last year. At present, the first case of new coronary pneumonia in Italy appeared five months earlier. According to the report, the detection of antibodies to the virus before the outbreak in Italy may "reshape the history of the pandemic." How does China respond to this?

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that we have seen and heard reports about the time and location of the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia. This once again confirms that virus traceability is a complex scientific issue. Scientists should carry out international scientific research and cooperation on a global scale to promote understanding of the animal host and transmission route of the virus. The purpose is to better prevent future risks and protect countries. The safety and health of people's lives. Virus traceability is a process of continuous development that may involve multiple countries and locations. We hope that all countries will adopt a positive attitude, strengthen cooperation with WHO and others, and promote global traceability.

China will continue to actively participate in global scientific research on virus traceability and transmission pathways, and work with the international community to contribute to global virus and anti-epidemic cooperation.


https://www.bjnews.com.cn/detail/160560171915761.html
 
Just for clarification arambaut is Andrew Rambaut who provided excellent analysis at the University of Edinburgh 'Epidemic' website (now closed) and set up virological.org
 
https://www.reuters.com/article/hea...hina-outbreak-sparks-scepticism-idUSL8N2I351V
Italian study suggesting COVID predates China outbreak sparks scepticism
By Giselda Vagnoni, Emilio Parodi
6 Min Read

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian study supporting the case that the novel coronavirus was circulating outside China earlier than thought has sparked doubts among some Western scientists who called for further tests.
...

“These results are worth reporting, but mostly should be taken as something to follow up with further testing,” said Mark Pagel, professor at the School of Biological Sciences at Britain’s University of Reading.

“All of the patients in the study were asymptomatic despite most being 55-65 years old and having been smokers. This would normally be a high-risk group for COVID-19, so it is puzzling why all patients were asymptomatic.”...
Click to expand...
 
June 1, 2021
7:16 AM CST

WHO re-checks research on when coronavirus first surfaced in Italy

Emilio Parodi
...
Samples from a study suggesting the coronavirus was circulating outside China by October 2019 have been re-tested at the World Health Organization's (WTO) request, two scientists who led the Italian research said.
...
COVID-19 was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, while Italy's first patient was detected on Feb. 21 last year in a small town near Milan.

However, a study published last year suggested antibodies to either the virus or a variant were detected in Italy in 2019.

That prompted Chinese state media to suggest the virus might not have originated in China, although the Italian researchers stressed the findings raised questions about when the virus first emerged rather than where.

"The WHO asked us if we could share the biological material and if we could re-run the tests in an independent laboratory. We accepted," Giovanni Apolone, scientific director of one of the lead institutions, the Milan Cancer Institute (INT), said.
...
The Italian researchers' findings, published by the INT's scientific magazine Tumori Journal, showed neutralising antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in blood taken from healthy volunteers in Italy in October 2019 during a lung cancer screening trial.
...
"None of the studies published so far have ever questioned the geographical origin," Apolone told Reuters.

"The growing doubt is that the virus, probably less powerful compared to later months, was circulating in China long before the reported cases," Apolone added.
...
The WHO chose the laboratory of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam for the re-test, Emanuele Montomoli, co-author of the original study and professor of Public Health at the Molecular Medicine Department in the University of Siena, said.

The Erasmus University did not reply to requests for comment.
...

https://www.reuters.com/business/he...-coronavirus-first-surfaced-italy-2021-06-01/
 
Clues to Covid-19’s Origins Include Anonymous Skin Sample in Italy

Case of Milan woman sickened in late 2019 has intrigued global researchers

By Eric Sylvers, Drew Hinshaw and Betsy McKay
July 12, 2021 9:00 am ET

MILAN—In the quest to understand how the Covid-19 pandemic began, one persistent mystery is an Italian woman who researchers say they can no longer find.

Members of a World Health Organization-led team studying the origins of the virus want to investigate the case of a 25-year-old Milan resident who in November 2019 visited a hospital with a sore throat and skin lesions: symptoms of a disease that wouldn’t be discovered in the city of Wuhan in China for another month. She left behind a skin sample, smaller than a dime, that in two tests conducted more than six months later yielded traces of the Covid-19 virus, according to research published in January by the British Journal of Dermatology.

Additional studies of the woman’s case, scientists say, could help determine how long the virus was circulating in China and elsewhere before a cluster of cases erupted at Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market in December 2019. The Covid-19-positive skin sample, sitting in wax in a researcher’s office in Milan, is an example of the scattered clues about the pandemic’s early days that the WHO-led investigation is pursuing outside of China, where the pandemic began.

“You cannot ignore it,” said Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, a member of the WHO-led team, referring to the Italian case in an April interview. She said the case offered enough evidence to merit broader investigation into whether the virus had spread to Italy by November 2019.

The problem, researchers say, is that none of them know who or where she is. Milan’s Policlinico hospital and the University of Milan, which oversaw her case, said they don’t have her details. Raffaele Gianotti, the dermatologist who treated her, died in March, days before the WHO-led team asked for more research into his patient. Covid-19 didn’t cause his death, said his wife, Roberta Massobrio.
...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-origin-italy-11626028854
 
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