Italian authorities hunting down mysterious ‘patient zero’ in virus outbreak

Italian authorities are scrambling to locate the mysterious “patient zero” who is believed to have caused the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

As the number of coronavirus cases in Italy continues to rapidly rise authorities are desperately trying to find the person responsible for the outbreak.

On Friday morning there were only three confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the country but that number has now risen to 229, making it the largest coronavirus outbreak in Europe and the third worst in the world.

Seven people in Italy have died from the virus, more than 100 people have been hospitalised with symptoms and another 27 are in intensive care, according to Italy’s National Civil Protection Service.

“These rapid developments over the weekend have shown how quickly this situation can change,” the health commissioner for the European Union, Stella Kyriakides, said in Brussels. “We need to take this situation of course very seriously, but we must not give in to panic, and, even more importantly, to disinformation.”

An Italian Carabinieri officer talks to a driver at a roadblock in Guardamiglio, southwest Milan, Italy. Picture: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images

Authorities have announced sweeping closures in the country’s north in a bid to contain the spread of the virus but the source of the outbreak is still unknown.

“The health officials haven’t been yet able to pinpoint ‘patient zero’,” Angelo Borrelli, head of the national Civil Protection agency, recently told reporters in Rome.

Borrelli indicated the current strategy was to concentrate on closures and other restrictions to try to stem the spread in the country, which had already banned direct flights from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

Italy has also tested millions of airport passengers arriving from other places for any signs of fever.

The outbreak is currently focused around Lombardy in the country’s north, with 11 towns in the region placed under strict quarantine for at least the next 15 days.

About 150 cases of the virus in Codogno, one of the towns under quarantine, have been linked to a 38-year-old Italian man identified as Mattia.

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Italian National Police officers patrol at the entrance of the small Italian town of Codogno. Picture: Miguel Medina/AFP

Before he realised he had the virus he ran a half-marathon, played football and went out to dinner with friends while infectious.

However experts from the Italian health service don’t believe Mattia, who had not visited China, is the mysterious patient zero.

Authorities are instead understood to be focusing on contact he may have had with a Chinese ship owner in a bid to pinpoint where the outbreak started.

The cause of another, smaller virus cluster in Vo’ Euganeo in the neighbouring Veneto region, which is also under lockdown, is as yet unexplained.

Scientific Director at the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Giuseppe Ippolito, told the Los Angeles Times that patient zero had likely recovered from the virus by now.

“But it is still crucial to find him or her to find out where they have been, so we know who else may have been infected,” he said.

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About 50,000 people have been ordered to stay home as roadblocks were set up around the region.

Across northern Italy schools were closed and sporting events and church services were cancelled. Fashion shows were held behind closed doors, while the Venice carnival was cut short, ending early on Sunday.

Trains between Austria and Italy were stopped over the weekend after two passengers were thought to be infected, but services resumed yesterday after they tested negative.

“No one has seen anything like this since the war, but we will get through this,” Francesco Passerini, 35, the mayor of Codogno said.

After the large increases in Covid-19 cases were reported in other countries, the World Heath Organisation said the virus had the potential to cause a pandemic, though it wasn’t one yet.

“The past few weeks has demonstrated just how quickly a new virus can spread around the world and cause widespread fear and disruption,” WHO’s Director- General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

But “for the moment we’re not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus,” he said.