ISS for COVID-19 - ISS (EN)

On 9 January 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the Chinese authorities had identified a hitherto unknown strain of coronavirus, provisionally called 2019-nCoV and later given the official nameof SARS-CoV-2. The virus was associated with an outbreak of pneumonia cases reported starting from 31 December 2019 in the city of Wuhan in Central China. 

On 11 February WHO announced that the respiratory disorder caused by the novel coronavirus was given the name of COVID-19. On 30 January the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) confirmed the first two cases in Italy of COVID-19 infection and on 21 February it confirmed the first indigenouscase in Italy.

Since 28 February the ISS has been coordinating a monitoring system which merges the microbiological and epidemiological data concerning individual cases provided by the Regions and Autonomous Provinces (AP) and by the ISS National Laboratory of Reference for SARS-CoV-2. Every day dedicated maps, tables and graphs are drawn up showing the diffusion in time and space of the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy together with a description of the characteristics of affected individuals.