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Coronavirus in China perhaps as early as October

2020-02-28T14:51:31.596Z


Fastest circulation from December (ANSA)


A circulation earlier than expected, starting from the period between mid-October and mid-November and therefore a few weeks earlier then compared to the first cases of pneumonia identified, and a real boost in the acceleration of the spread that occurred in December: this is what emerges from the analysis of the genetic heritage of the new coronavirus being published in the Journal of Medical Virology and accessible on the MedRxiv website.

The research was carried out in the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences of the Sacco Hospital in Milan and in the Research Center for Epidemiology and Molecular Surveillance of Infections (Episomes), which belongs to the same State University of Milan. It is due to Alessia Lai, Annalisa Bergna, Carla Acciarri, Massimo Galli and Gianguglielmo Zehender.
The research was based on the analysis of 52 complete SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus genomes deposited in international genetic data banks as of 30 January 2020 and allowed to establish the period in which the virus began to circulate and to reconstruct the spread of infection in the early months of the outbreak in China.

In this work, fundamental epidemiological parameters were fundamental, such as the basic reproductive number (indicated with R0) which indicates the number of new cases that can be generated by an individual with the infection, and the doubling time of the infections.

It has thus emerged that from a very low reproductive number, less than 1, in December the virus passed to 2.6: a figure, this, which according to the researchers allows us to hypothesize the rapid acquisition of a greater transmission efficiency of the virus. The causes of this transformation are not clear at the moment: it could be due to changes that have allowed the virus to transmit more efficiently from man to man, or to the characteristics of the population mainly affected.

The analysis also showed that the doubling time of the epidemic is estimated, starting from December, in about four days and therefore less than that calculated on the basis of the number of cases reported in the same period, which was equal to about a week .

The hypothesis of the researchers is that the transmission of the virus from the host animal to humans and the first human-to-human transmissions had initially limited efficiency, to become faster and more efficient in December. "It is likely - the researchers note - that this rapid growth of cases has subsequently decreased following the restrictive measures adopted in China".
Further studies on genomes isolated in a more recent period may confirm the usefulness of these techniques also in evaluating the effects of the preventive measures adopted.

Source: ansa

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