The English variant of the coronavirus has already been around for a month.
Three sequences of samples collected in Denmark and one in Australia, taken in November, were found to be linked to the English outbreak caused by this mutation.
This indicates that "its international diffusion has already taken place, even if its extent is unknown".
The European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) explains this in a report published on its website.
"Public health authorities and laboratories in all European countries
must analyze isolated viruses in a timely manner
to identify cases of the new variant. Those who have had contact with people positive for the new mutation or have traveled to the affected areas should be identified immediately, so to test them, isolate them and trace their contacts ", says the ECDC.
"I signed an ordinance whereby anyone who comes directly or indirectly from Great Britain and Ireland must swab", said the president of Veneto Luca Zaia.
The ordinance therefore also provides that anyone who has also passed through other countries but starting from Great Britain and Ireland will have to take a swab.
On a Ryanair flight from London that landed in Palermo last night,
three positive swabs and two doubts
were found
: molecular tests were performed on 134 passengers and six crew members.
Rapid antigenic swabs had failed.
The subsequent checks have unfortunately ascertained the presence of three infected among the passengers, who are all in quarantine.
In the meantime,
the procedure for the isolation of the virus sequence to verify the so-called variant
was
started at Spallanzani in Rome
.
The checks will be made on the test performed on a passenger who landed yesterday in Fiumicino and tested positive for the swab.
The results of the investigations will be in the next few days to establish whether the passenger, positive for Covid, has the so-called English variant.
According to what is learned, it is a young doctor.
Out of 351 passengers who landed yesterday in Fiumicino from England, this is the only positive result at Covid.
The woman who tested positive for the British variant of Covid is well and asymptomatic
.
The woman is not hospitalized but is in isolation with her partner in their home in the Rome area.
The latter, of British origins, is also positive and asymptomatic and had returned a few days ago from the United Kingdom but the variant has not yet been confirmed on him.
His partner, on the other hand, has a strong viral load.
Element, the latter, which would have helped to sequence the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with the variant found in recent weeks in Great Britain.
During these hours, several close contacts - including family members - of the woman have been traced and placed in isolation.
Another suspicious case of the new English variant of Covid is found in Bari: it
concerns a 25-year-old girl who returned to Bari from London last Thursday with a fever.
The young woman, subjected to a swab in the Apulian capital, tested positive for Coronavirus.
Virtually all of Europe, including Italy, has decided to suspend flights with Great Britain.
From Wednesday, Israel will ban foreign citizens from entering its territory.
And all Israelis returning from that date will have to quarantine.
The German presidency of the EU has invited member states to an urgent meeting of the IPCR, the political crisis management mechanism.
"The variant of Sars-CoV2 that is currently circulating in London and south east England, has mutations on the virus's surface protein, the so-called Spike. Although it is hypothesized that these mutations may increase the transmissibility of the virus, they do not seem to alter either clinical aggression or response to vaccines, "said the Director of Prevention for the Ministry of Health, Gianni Rezza.