Spanish researchers talk about detecting a new coronavirus in wastewater last March

, June 29
Xinhua
-- A team of researchers led by the University of Barcelona in Spain has detected the new coronavirus in a sample of Wastewater collected in Barcelona in March last year. Albert Bosh, a professor of biology at the University of Barcelona who led the study, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview Tuesday that the results suggest that the new coronavirus may have "started to spread without people realizing it", but that it was not recognized at the time because its symptoms were similar to respiratory diseases such as influenza.
led by Mr. D'Abosch, had previously worked with two wastewater treatment plants in Barcelona to extract wastewater samples to detect enterovirus. After the outbreak, as part of Spain's new coronavirus "sentinel monitoring project", they turned to concentrated wastewater samples for new coronavirus polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, from which to look for traces of the new coronavirus.
The original intention of this study, Bosh said, the new coronavirus in the infected person's fecal excreta content is high, long-term presence, will be with the infected person's fecal excreta discharge wastewater, so wastewater-based epidemiological research is a good tool to monitor the spread of the virus, and help to respond to a possible new outbreak in a timely manner.
researchers also tested frozen wastewater samples from a wastewater treatment plant and found a new coronavirus in a wastewater sample on January 15, 2020, 41 days before the first confirmed case was reported in mainland Spain. The findings prompted researchers to turn their attention to earlier archived wastewater samples and study samples that have been preserved since January 2018.
" other samples were negative, with only one sample apparently positive on March 12, 2019. Bosh said the virus has evolved, and while it is not possible to confirm whether the detected virus is exactly the same as the new coronavirus that is now spreading, "it belongs to the virus."
the study, which points to the possibility that the new coronavirus had spread in Barcelona before the world's first new coronavirus was reported. Bosh previously said in a communique issued by the University of Barcelona that Barcelona is a commercial and tourist center that receives many foreign tourists. The results suggest that similar situations may occur in other parts of the world, but many cases may be overlooked because they have been misdiagnosed as influenza.
the findings have been submitted for peer review, but have also raised questions from many scientists who believe the experiment used a single sample, undermining the credibility of the results and preventing repeated tests to confirm them.
bosz responded that the biggest problem with the experiment was a shortage of samples. The samples found in the freezer were the rest of the study of other viruses, and the researchers were only able to test for the remaining samples for the new coronavirus. This, he admits, is why the samples did not cover all months between January 2018 and December 2019, "not every month, and some months are gone."