Collaborations also with overseas partners
di Francesco Unali
5 May 2021 - A year spent chasing the virus that ofUnit of Medical Statistics and Molecular Epidemiology ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma direct from teacher Massimo Ciccozzi. From the study thanks to which, first in Italy in January 2020, the epidemiologist managed to identify the leap of species of the new Coronavirus (from bat to man), research in epidemiology on the virus that has infected the world has come a long way .
Especially the study group Ucbm, distributed between Italy, Florida and Brazil, has ringed a sequence of 40 scientific publications in some of the most authoritative scientific journals of medicine and epidemiology. Together with his scientific activity, Ciccozzi has carried out, throughout the pandemic, an intense dissemination activity in the mass media aimed at providing the most objective and clear information possible on the infection situation and the ongoing trend, month after month, from the point of epidemiological view. Among the numerous researches, significant was the contribution thanks to which the group of Italian-American-Brazilian researchers coordinated by Massimo Ciccozzi e Davide Zella of the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore (Maryland, USA) identified well 13 packs of viral variants, hidden receptacles in the area, which suggested setting up the fight against the virus starting from the blockade of local outbreaks even before the generalized lockdowns.
Another work of primary importance, carried out together with prof. Arnaldo Caruso of Brescia, was the one relating to the so-called "Italian variant", located in position N501T. According to the scientists, the virus would have changed into Y within a month, between August and September, moving freely around Europe.
The epidemiological commitment ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma he then continued with it study of the Rt, the indicator used to establish the level of contagiousness of the virus: a work that confirmed doubts about a very useful indicator but which risks making decisions late and less effective.