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Updated July 6th, 2021 at 18:30 IST

Italian prosecutors investigate COVID-19 cases in country before official confirmation

Italian prosecutors are examining the latest evidence that indicates that the novel coronavirus was spreading the country weeks before first local transmission.

Reported by: Aanchal Nigam
COVID-19
IMAGE: AP/Pixabay | Image:self
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After over an year of COVID-19 pandemic engulfing the world into chaos and Italy witnessing Europe’s deadliest outbreak, Italian prosecutors are examining the latest evidence which indicates that the COVID-19 virus spreading in  the country weeks before even the first local transmission was officially detected. As criminal investigations in the country continue, The Guardian reported that the lawyers representing the families of COVID-19 victims have claimed that the medical records of a man in his 50s who was was admitted to a hospital with bilateral pneumonia at the end of January 2020 in Bergamo “could change the timeline of the pandemic in Italy.”

Italian prosecutor Consuelo Locati, representing families in two legal cases reportedly said that the impact of the “possible negligence” is that several deaths could have been avoided. He said, “And if this was a choice that came from high up, like a political choice, it would mean people were killed by politics more so than the virus.”

According to the medical records obtained by the media outlet, the patient was discharged from the hospital on February 17, 2020, which is four days before Italy confirmed the first locally transmitted case of COVID-19 in Codogno,  a Lombardy town south of Milan. Prior to the Codogno case, the only confirmed patients of the highly infectious disease in the European nation were two Chinese tourists who arrived in Milan on January 23, 2020, before being admitted to a hospital in Rome a week later. 

COVID-19 in Italy

Italy was one of the first nations outside China to be rocked by the drastic spread of COVID-19 and was also the first country in the western world to be engulfed by the pandemic. It also has the highest COVID-19-related death toll in Europe after the UK at 127,649 as of Sunday, July 5. Reportedly, at the time when the Codogno case was diagnosed, Italy was testing the travellers to China within the 14 days prior to initial symptoms. 

However, reportedly, according to the guidelines published by the health ministry on January 22, 2020, the coronavirus testing was also supposed to be done on those “with an unusual and unexpected clinical course, especially if followed by an abrupt deterioration despite adequate treatments, irrespective of their place of residence or travel history”.

The medical records have revealed that the Bergamo patient had developed symptoms of “coughing, with fever” just days before he was admitted to the hospital in Seriate. Further, the CT scan of the patient’s lungs showed “the left lung had shaded parenchymal thickening looking like ground glass.” Reportedly, the results of the scan reflected the features of COVID-19 in the patients who had either clinical or radiological evidence of pneumonia. 

IMAGE: AP/Pixabay

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Published July 6th, 2021 at 18:34 IST

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