Coronavirus traces found in Mar 2019 sewage sample, Spanish study shows

Spanish virologists have found traces of Covid-19 in a sample of Barcelona wastewater collected in March 2019, the University of Barcelona said on Friday (June 26).

The team, who have been testing wastewater since mid-April 2020, also ran tests on older samples.

They discovered that the virus was present in Barcelona on January 15 2020, 41 days before the first case was officially reported in the city.

The researchers also ran tests on samples taken between January 2018 and December 2019 and found the coronavirus genome in one of the samples, collected on March 12, 2019.

"The levels of SARS-CoV-2 were low but were positive," research leader Albert Bosch said.

The research has been submitted for a peer review.

Dr Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration told Reuters that the findings were "definitely interesting", but said that it was still too early to draw definitive conclusions.

"When it’s just one result, you always want more data, more studies, more samples to confirm it and rule out a laboratory error or a methodological problem", he said.

(Source: The Telegraph)