Coronavirus: Disease Control

(asked on 17th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have had any discussions with the World Health Organization (WHO) about when the governments of (1) Italy, and (2) France, first reported the emergence of COVID-19 to WHO; if so, when in (a) 2019, and (b) 2020, any such emergence was reported by those countries; what assessment they have made of reports of COVID-19 appearing in waste water in Barcelona in 2019; and when they became aware of any such reports.


Answered by
Lord Bethell Portrait
Lord Bethell
This question was answered on 22nd January 2021

The United Kingdom has not had any specific discussions with the World Health Organization on the emergence of COVID-19 in France and Italy. The UK Government received notification of France and Italy’s first COVID-19 cases through the European Early Warning and Response System. France reported its first three COVID-19 cases on 24 January 2020. Italy reported its first two COVID-19 cases on 31 January 2020.


The Government has not made any assessment of reports of COVID-19 appearing in wastewater in Barcelona in 2019. In the UK, a national wastewater surveillance programme was announced on 12 June 2020 by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Scottish and Welsh devolved administrations, focusing on sewage monitoring as part of an advance warning system to detect new outbreaks of COVID-19.

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