Coronavirus hunters pick up another piece of the trail in Italy
- New research suggests the pathogen infected people across the country months before it was detected in China
- Antibodies specific to the coronavirus were found in blood samples from lung cancer screening tests going back to September last year
Researchers may have found a new link in this puzzle after discovering evidence suggesting the pathogen had infected people across Italy as early as September last year, or months before it was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
The unexpected finding “may reshape the history of [the] pandemic”, said the team led by Dr Gabriella Sozzi, a life scientist with the National Cancer Institute of Milan, in a peer-reviewed paper published last week in the Tumori Journal.
The researchers tested blood samples from lung cancer screening tests in Italy and said they found antibodies specific to Sars-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19, in samples from patients all over the country in every month of a six-month trial that started in September 2019.
![Gabriella Sozzi’s research team wrote that the unexpected finding could “reshape the history of [the] pandemic”. Photo: Handout](https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2020/11/17/23d77b84-27ff-11eb-bf26-f2b76f37a526_1320x770_123847.JPEG "Gabriella Sozzi’s research team wrote that the unexpected finding could “reshape the history of [the] pandemic”. Photo: Handout")
The presence of the antibodies indicates the virus was infecting people in Italy before it was detected in Wuhan in late December.