西班牙最新研究顯示，在中國發現新冠疫情前九個月就有了冠狀病毒

據路透社馬德里以題為“西班牙研究顯示，2019年3月汙水樣本中發現冠狀病毒痕跡”（Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample, Spanish study shows）報道，8月28日，西班牙巴塞羅那大學表示，西班牙病毒學家在2019年3月收集的巴塞羅那廢水樣本中發現了新型冠狀病毒的蹤跡，這是在中國發現新冠肺炎病的九個月前。

如果在西班牙這麼早就發現了病毒基因組，這將意味著這種疾病可能比科學界想象的要早得多。

巴塞羅那大學的研究小組從今年4月中旬開始測試廢水，以確定潛在的新疫情，並決定對舊樣本進行測試。

他們於2020年1月15日首次在巴塞羅那發現了這種病毒，比第一例病例在巴塞羅那被正式報道的時間早了41天。

然後，他們對2018年1月至2019年12月採集的樣本進行了測試，發現其中一個樣本中存在病毒基因組，該樣本於2019年3月12日採集。

該大學援引研究負責人阿爾伯特·博施的話說:“非典病毒的感染率很低，但呈陽性。”這項研究已提交同行評審。

西班牙公共健康和衛生管理協會的瓊·拉蒙·維拉比博士告訴路透社記者，現在下結論還為時過早。他說：“當它只是一個結果時，你總是需要更多的數據，更多的研究，更多的樣本來證實它，並排除實驗室錯誤或方法問題。”

由於該病毒與其他呼吸道感染相似，因此有可能出現假陽性。比利亞爾比說：“但這的確很有趣，很有啟發性。”

西班牙病毒學家協會主席博施說，即使在一月份進行早期檢測，也可以提高對這種流行病的反應。相反，患者很可能被誤診為普通流感，在採取措施之前導致了社區傳播。

荷蘭KWR水資源研究所的格特詹·梅德瑪教授的團隊於今年2月開始對廢水進行冠狀病毒測試，他建議巴塞羅納團隊需要重複測試，以確認它確實是非典病毒(SARS-CoV-2)。

（艾瑪·皮內多、內森·艾倫和因蒂·蘭杜羅報道）

該報道英文原文如下：

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said on Friday.

The discovery of virus genome presence so early in Spain, if confirmed, would imply the disease may have appeared much earlier than the scientific community thought.

The University of Barcelona team, who had been testing waste water since mid-April this year to identify potential new outbreaks, decided to also run tests on older samples.

They first found the virus was present in Barcelona on Jan. 15, 2020, 41 days before the first case was officially reported there.

Then they ran tests on samples taken between January 2018 and December 2019 and found the presence of the virus genome in one of them, collected on March 12, 2019.

“The levels of SARS-CoV-2 were low but were positive,” research leader Albert Bosch was quoted as saying by the university.

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 it was still 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.

There was the potential for a false positive due to the virus’ similarities with other respiratory infections.

“But it’s definitely interesting, it’s suggestive,” Villalbi said.

Bosch, who is president of the Spanish Society of Virologists, said that an early detection even in January could have improved the response to the pandemic. Instead, patients were probably misdiagnosed with common flu, contributing to community transmission before measures were taken.

Prof. Gertjan Medema of the KWR Water Research Institute in the Netherlands, whose team began using a coronavirus test on waste water in February, suggested the Barcelona group needs to repeat the tests to confirm it is really the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Spain has recorded more than 28,000 confirmed deaths and nearly 250,000 cases of the virus so far.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, Nathan Allen and Inti Landauro, writing by Inti Landauro and Andrei Khalip, Editing by Angus MacSwan)