Laboratory of Molecular Virology, Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
Front Public Health. 2022 Mar 3;10:846115. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.846115. eCollection 2022.
In December 2019, a novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, rapidly spreading into a global pandemic. Italy was the first European country to experience SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, and one of the most severely affected during the first wave of diffusion. In contrast to the general restriction of people movements in Europe, the number of migrants arriving at Italian borders via the Mediterranean Sea route in the summer of 2020 had increased dramatically, representing a possible, uncontrolled source for the introduction of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants. Importantly, most of the migrants came from African countries showing limited SARS-CoV-2 epidemiological surveillance. In this study, we characterized the SARS-CoV-2 genome isolated from an asymptomatic migrant arrived in Sardinia the Mediterranean route in September 2020, in comparison with SARS-CoV-2 isolates arrived in Sicily through the Libyan migration route; with SARS-CoV-2 isolates circulating in Sardinia during 2020; and with viral genomes reported in African countries during the same summer. Results showed that our sequence is not phylogenetically related to isolates from migrants arriving in Sicily, nor to isolates circulating in Sardinia territory, having greater similarity to SARS-CoV-2 genomes reported in countries known for being sites of migrant embarkation to Italy. This is in line with the hypothesis that most SARS-CoV-2 infections among migrants have been acquired prior to embarking to Italy, possibly during the travel to or the stay in crowded Libyan immigrant camps. Overall, these observations underline the importance of dedicated SARS-CoV-2 surveillance of migrants arriving in Italy and in Europe through the Mediterranean routes.
2019 年 12 月，一种新型冠状病毒在中国武汉出现，迅速蔓延成为全球大流行。意大利是第一个经历 SARS-CoV-2 疫情的欧洲国家，也是第一波传播中受影响最严重的国家之一。与欧洲普遍限制人员流动不同，2020 年夏季，通过地中海路线抵达意大利边境的移民人数急剧增加，这可能是引入新型 SARS-CoV-2 变体的一个不可控来源。重要的是，大多数移民来自非洲国家，这些国家对 SARS-CoV-2 的流行病学监测有限。在这项研究中，我们对 2020 年 9 月通过地中海路线抵达撒丁岛的一名无症状移民所分离的 SARS-CoV-2 基因组进行了特征描述，与通过利比亚移民路线抵达西西里岛的 SARS-CoV-2 分离株进行了比较；与 2020 年撒丁岛流行的 SARS-CoV-2 分离株进行了比较；并与同期非洲国家报告的病毒基因组进行了比较。结果表明，我们的序列与从西西里岛抵达的移民中分离的病毒株以及在撒丁岛流行的病毒株没有系统进化关系，与已知是移民抵达意大利的出发地的国家报告的 SARS-CoV-2 基因组具有更大的相似性。这与以下假设一致，即移民中大多数 SARS-CoV-2 感染是在前往意大利或逗留于拥挤的利比亚移民营地期间获得的，而不是在抵达意大利期间获得的。总的来说，这些观察结果强调了对通过地中海路线抵达意大利和欧洲的移民进行专门的 SARS-CoV-2 监测的重要性。
