The new Italian Covid-19 patient 1 was found: it would be a 25-year-old Milanese woman, who had a skin biopsy for an atypical dermatosis, on 10 November 2019, before the Milanese child, considered so far patient 1 in Italy, where the presence of the virus was documented with a test done in December 2019.
The discovery was published in the British Journal of dermatology by researchers led by
Raffaele Gianotti
, of the State University of Milan, in collaboration with the Ieo and the Italian Diagnostic Center.
"Based on what has been observed in recent months on Covid patients - explains Gianotti to ANSA -, who presented skin lesions, I wondered if it was not possible to find something similar before the official start of the pandemic. And we actually found it. in histological examinations made on some patients in the autumn of 2019 ".
In fact, the researchers re-examined the skin biopsies of atypical dermatoses, for which it was not possible to make a precise diagnosis in the autumn of 2019. "In our works already published in international journals we have shown that in this pandemic - he continues - cases in which the only sign of Covid-19 infection is that of a skin pathology ".
And this was the case with the young woman, who had only skin lesions (for which lupus erythematosus was initially suspected), and a mild sore throat.
His biopsy, performed on November 10, showed the presence of RNA gene sequences from the SARSCoV2 virus, Covid-19 'fingerprints' in skin tissue.
The patient, contacted later, reported the absence of symptoms of Covid-19 infection, the disappearance of the lesions on the skin in April and the positivity of anti-SarsCoV2 antibodies in the blood in June 2020.
This "is therefore the oldest scientifically documented case of the presence of SarsCov2 - concludes Gianotti - but probably, continuing to search, we would also find it on samples from October 2019".
This new study is added to those of recent months that had detected the presence of the coronavirus in the wastewater of Northern Italy in December 2019, that of the National Cancer Institute of Milan which had found antibodies to the virus in patients of a screening for the lung cancer between September 2019 and March 2020, and that of the Milanese child who tested positive in a test done at the beginning of December 2019.
