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A study carried out in France suggests that the coronavirus was already circulating in the EU country in November 2019.
The results “indicate an earlier spread of Sars-CoV-2 in Europe than has been reported so far,” the authors write in the “European Journal of Epidemiology”.
The novel virus was officially reported for the first time in China at the end of December 2019.
The researchers in France accessed a database of almost 10,000 blood samples, of which their results showed at least 44 coronavirus antibodies - including seven from November and three from December 2019. However, it cannot be ruled out that false-positive samples among the The authors emphasized.
But it can be ruled out that all results are wrong.
Recently, scientists had come across indications several times that the virus was already in circulation before China reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The new study does not provide any new, definitive evidence, but confirms these assumptions.
As early as August 2020, researchers at a clinic in Alsace, France, had evaluated lung images of patients and discovered a case from mid-November 2019 that indicated the viral disease.
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