A 4-year-old child from Milan was infected with the new coronavirus on November 21, 2019, but it was thought to be measles, according to a study by the State University in the Lombard capital, published by Emerging Infectious Diseasese magazine, reports EFE, according to Agerpres.
Italian media on Thursday echoed this study which reveals who was “patient 1” in Italy and which would prove that the disease was circulating long before the end of February when the first cases were reported.
According to the study, on November 30, the child was hospitalized in the Emergency Department with respiratory symptoms and vomiting, and on December 1, the first rashes appeared on the skin very similar to measles.
On 5 December, 14 days after the onset of symptoms, she underwent an analysis to see if she was suffering from measles and had been kept in hospital, according to the protocol for monitoring measles and rubella cases.
The result was negative and was subsequently tested for COVID-19, which was positive, given that the disease may be accompanied by a syndrome similar to Kawasaki disease that causes common rashes and other viral infections, such as measles.
According to researchers, this shows that the virus has been circulating for some time, as evidenced by its sudden and overwhelming impact in the February pandemic.
This is also proven by subsequent investigations, which detected the presence of the virus in the wastewater of Milan in mid-December 2019.
This prolonged and unrecognized spread of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in northern Italy could explain – at least in part, according to researchers – the devastating impact of the first wave of the pandemic in the north of the country.
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