Corona Virus Allegedly Spread Before It Was First Detected in China

London –

Scientists first heard about Sars-CoV-2 after the virus was detected in China nearly a year ago. However, the virus may have been around long before it was reported, says a new study.

Scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published their findings in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Officially, the virus is thought to have started spreading on December 31, 2019, when health authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan issued a warning about a series of cases linked to the mysterious respiratory virus.

But now, eleven months later, researchers identified that 39 people from three US states had developed coronavirus antibodies two weeks before the cases were reported in China.

In the US, the first cases of Sars-Cov-2 were not identified until January 21, 2020.

The study analyzed more than 7,000 blood samples collected by the Red Cross in various US locations (Getty Images)

The study found that there were Corona virus antibodies in 106 blood samples out of a total of 7,389 collected from routine blood donations held across the US between December 13, 2019 and January 17, 2020.

The presence of antibodies in a person’s blood means they have been exposed to the virus and their immune system triggers a defensive response.

Specifically, of these, 39 blood samples donated in the states of California, Oregon and Washington on December 13-16 have antibodies to the Corona virus.

The study also found antibodies in 67 blood samples collected in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin in early January – before the outbreak spread across the state.

The majority of those ever infected were men, with an average age of 52 years.

Researchers believe some of these antibodies can be produced as an immune response to other coronaviruses circulating in the world.

However, the authors said the large number of people found with antibodies in the study indicated that some were very likely to have contracted COVID-19 at the time.

Researchers still argue that widespread community transmission in the US didn’t occur until late February, but how do these findings change what we know about the start of the pandemic?

When did the Corona virus appear?

The first outbreak of the Corona Sars-CoV-2 virus was initially linked to a food market in Wuhan, China (Getty Images)

Exactly when the Sars-Cov-2 virus appeared is a question we will probably never be able to answer.

There are some indications that the virus had been circulating weeks, or even months, before the first outbreak broke out in Wuhan in December 2019.

But the CDC researchers said one of the limitations of their study was the inability to determine whether the people they studied were infected in their own country or while traveling.

The Red Cross, which collects the samples used for the study, said only 3% of blood donors reported having traveled abroad a month before donating blood.

And of that number, only 5% said they had traveled to Asia.

Another study found evidence of the virus existed before official warnings were issued in China.

In May, French scientists said testing on samples showed a patient treated for suspected pneumonia near Paris on December 27 actually had the coronavirus.

Researchers in several countries have also found the Corona virus in wastewater collected weeks or months before cases in Wuhan, China, were reported.

In June, Italian scientists said wastewater from two cities, Milan and Turin, contained traces of the coronavirus on December 18, long before the country’s first cases were confirmed.

Meanwhile in Spain, a study found traces of the virus in wastewater collected in mid-January in Barcelona, ​​about 40 days before the first local cases were reported.

Research in Spain and Brazil has found the virus in wastewater samples collected before COVID-19 cases were reported in Wuhan (Getty Images)

There are also new questions about when the Coronavirus will reach Brazil.

The first person to be diagnosed there, on February 26, was a 61-year-old businessman from Sao Paulo who recently returned from Italy. Italy then became the second epicenter of the pandemic.

However, a research team at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) discovered the virus in wastewater on November 27, 2019.

Another study, by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, reported that at least one case of Sars-Cov-2 in Brazil occurred before the first official case was reported, between 19-25 January.

It is not known whether the case was linked to overseas travel.

There is evidence that the Coronavirus in Brazil existed one month before the first cases were reported there (Getty Images)

What remains unclear is how and when the Sars-CoV-2 virus started infecting humans, as well as from what animals it “jumped” into the human body.

Initial attention was focused on the Wuhan market selling live and dead wild animals as a large number of early cases could be attributed to that location.

However, researchers are not sure whether the virus appeared there or “exploited” the conditions in that place to spread from one person to another.

“If you asked me what the bigger possibility was, I would say the virus came from a market that sells wild animals,” Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, told the BBC.

The timeline for the spread of the Coronavirus in China itself is retreating, which is nothing special when we investigate the emergence of a rapidly spreading disease, such as COVID-19.

A study by doctors in Wuhan, published earlier this year in a medical journal The Lancet, reported that the first known case of COVID-19 was detected on 1 December 2019, and does not have a clear link to the animal market.

Some experts argue that a virus that has a potential to become a pandemic is almost impossible to spread around the world for months without being detected.

However, the virus can circulate undetected for weeks, especially during the northern hemisphere winter.

(nvc / nvc)

– .