G. Fongaro, Patrícia Hermes Stoco, Dóris Sobral Marques Souza, E. Grisard, M. E. Magri, Paula Rogovski, Marcos André Schörner, Fernando Hartmann Barazzetti, A. Christoff, L. F. V. de Oliveira, M. Bazzo, Glauber Wagner, Marta Hernández, D. Rodríguez-Lázaro
medRxiv, 2020
We analysed human sewage located in Florianopolis (Santa Catalina, Brazil) from late October until the Brazil lockdown on early March. We detected SARS-CoV-2 in two samples collected independently on 27th November 2019 (5.49 {+/-} 0.02 log genome copies/L). Subsequent samplings were positive until 4th March 2020 (coinciding with the first COVID-19 case reported in Santa Catalina), with a SARS-CoV-2 RNA increase of one log (6.68 {+/-} 0.02 log genome copies/L). Our results show that SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in Brazil since late November 2019, much earlier than the first reported case in the Americas (21st January 2020, USA).
Cited by 21 publications.
Field of study: Biology