The researchers say the study on COVID-19 in Italy does not dispute the origin of the virus

MILAN (Reuters) – Authors of a study showing the novel coronavirus was circulating in Italy earlier than experts previously believed, said Thursday their data did not contest the origins of COVID-19 as they defended accuracy. of their results.

The results of the Italian researchers showed that 11.6% of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening study between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed antibodies to the coronavirus well before February.

If these findings are correct, the scientists said it could change the story of the pandemic’s origin, raising doubts about when and where the virus first emerged.

The novel coronavirus was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December. The first Italian COVID-19 patient was detected on February 21 in a small town near Milan in the northern region of Lombardy.

The Chinese government said Tuesday it believes the study showed tracing the origin of the virus was an ongoing process that could involve many countries.

But the Italian researchers said that’s not necessarily their conclusion.

“These results simply document that the outbreak in China was not detected in time,” Giovanni Apolone, scientific director of the National Cancer Institute (INT) and co-author of the study, said at a press conference in Milan.

The study also raised doubts among some Western scientists who called for further testing.

Much skepticism has focused on the so-called specificity of antibody tests, which, if not perfect, could reveal the presence of antibodies against other diseases.

Emanuele Montomoli, co-author of the study and professor of preventive medicine at the University of Siena, defended the accuracy of the research, stating that the tests identified antibodies by targeting a part of the spike protein called Rector binding domain (RBD). which is specific to the new coronavirus.

“Subsequently, the serum samples were also tested on four different types of coronaviruses circulating at that time in Europe and the United States and there were no cross reactions,” the scientist said at the press conference.

Some scientists have also wondered how there could be such a high percentage of samples with COVID-19 antibodies when the virus was detected in only 2.5% of the Italian population by the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) last spring.

Another study author said the two datasets were not comparable.

“Our study by no means suggests that 11% of Italians had COVID antibodies in the September-October period,” said Gabriella Sozzi, Director of Genomics Cancer at INT.

“There were 959 healthy volunteers, heavy smokers or former smokers aged between 55 and 65, mostly males, not a representative sample of Italians,” he added.