Ahus researchers: The coronavirus may have reached Norway already in 2019

Researchers at Ahus found antibodies against COVID-19 dating back to December 2019, a month before the first case was detected in Europe.

“The discovery changes the story of the corona epidemic,” project manager Anne Eskild at Ahus stated.

The first case in Europe was detected on January 27, 2020. It was not detected in Norway until February 24 in the same year.

Ahus’s discovery is from the same period as the first proven case was found in China.

According to an Italian study from Milan, it has also been proven that the coronavirus was present in Italy in 2019, as early as September 2019.

Some researchers also pointed out that the virus probably circulated in Chinese Wuhan long before it was officially detected. The main theory is still that the virus first spread there.

Surprised

“It was very surprising,” Eskild said.

The researchers searched for antibodies in stored blood samples. The samples were taken from pregnant women in the first trimester and as part of maternity care. They were stored to monitor potential infectious diseases.

“There are probably few other countries that have access to stored blood samples at a population level, and therefore there are few or no other retrospective studies,” Eskild stated.

98 findings

The researchers were given access to the anonymous test samples on the basis of the Infection Control Act.

There are many indications that they were infected abroad, Esklid noted. She believes this indicates that the infection was widespread in large parts of the world earlier than we have thought so far.

“Our findings change the history of the corona epidemic both in Norway and in the world,” Eskild pointed out.

Antibodies were detected in 98 of the 6,520 samples analyzed. A certain proportion of false-positive results must be taken into account, the researchers say.

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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