A Norwegian study confirms that Corona appeared in Europe weeks before the first cases of the virus were confirmed
Researchers in Norway indicated that the Covid-19 virus was likely more prevalent in Europe and around the world, before it was discovered during the first official diagnosis, as scientists at Akershus University Hospital near Oslo determined a positive result for the Corona virus in a blood sample taken from a 12-year-old pregnant woman. December Officials have confirmed that the woman may have contracted the virus at the end of November or early December.
"Our results changed the history of the Corona pandemic in Norway and in the world," said Anne Eskilde, professor and chief medical officer at Akershus. "In fact, we found four out of 1,500 tests on pregnant women that were positive before the first case was diagnosed in France," Escalde told Euronews.
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In May 2020, another French patient, who was treated for pneumonia in hospital on 27 December 2019 was reported to have contracted COVID-19 after analyzing the swab taken from him at that time.
Professor Anne Esquid explained that her research shows that the virus was present long before those French cases. "The gathering area at our hospital includes women coming from all over the world. I think some of the affected women have given birth or been present, or have had relatives or visitors from places all over the world," she added. "The conclusion is that since the infected women in the area gather us from all over the world, the virus may have been around the world before the Chinese announced the epidemic," Escalade emphasized.
How was the research conducted?
As part of pregnancy care in Norway, blood samples are taken from all pregnant women to check for sexually transmitted diseases. The samples are then stored in an anonymous manner, for the purpose of monitoring for possible infectious diseases, and thus were available to researchers looking into the origins of the spread of COVID-19 in the Scandinavian country.
"There may be few other countries that have access to blood samples stored at the population level and so there are few or no other retrospective studies," Eskilde explained.
The results of the two teams have been published in the University of Cambridge Journal of Epidemiology and Infection.
A cluster of pneumonia-like cases was identified in Wuhan, China, during December 2019 and on January 12, 2020, and Chinese authorities shared the genetic sequence of the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus.
According to "Eurucévisions", the European journal on infectious disease surveillance, epidemiology, prevention and control, the first three European cases were confirmed in France on January 24, 2020, after symptoms appeared only a few days earlier.