VIRUS MAY HAVE BEEN PRESENT ACROSS ITALY IN OCTOBER 2019

Retesting of blood samples has shown that coronavirus may have been circulating in Italy as early as October 2019, researchers have claimed. The World Health Organization asked for further clarification after researchers at a cancer centre in Milan claimed that samples from cancer patients showed COVID may have been circulating for several months in Italy even before the first cases were reported in China in Nov. 2019. In the first paper researchers tested blood samples from 959 individuals who had been screened for lung cancer and found that 111 tested positive for antibodies against COVID-19. The earliest sample showing one type of antibody — IgM — was collected in October 2019, the researchers said.