key: cord-0972860-disjzba3
authors: Baddal, Buket; Bostanci, Aysegul; Suer, Kaya; Sanlidag, Tamer
title: SARS-CoV-2 was already in circulation in Northern Cyprus in the prepandemic period
date: 2021-03-01
journal: J Infect
DOI: 10.1016/j.jinf.2021.02.026
sha: 17d152c7752110f343ab6b090a91cc0af5626b3e
doc_id: 972860
cord_uid: disjzba3

nan

We read with interest the study by Zhen et al. 1 , showing that there was co-infection of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus in the early stages of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China.

Symptoms of COVID-19 are similar to influenza-like illness in which both diseases are characterized by high fever, cough, myalgia and headache. Given the similarity of symptoms, the overlap of COVID-19 with the influenza peak season and the lack of testing at the initial phase of the pandemic, Zhen et al. indicated concern that some SARS-CoV-2 cases could have been missed during the emerging phase of the pandemic. Recent evidence suggests that there were multiple cases of COVID-19 co-infection with influenza which was undetected until the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 2,3 .

After the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic by the World Health organization in March 2020, global health surveillance was quickly implemented to identify cases of the disease. The official index case of COVID-19 in Northern Cyprus was reported on 10 th March 2020 as a tourist from Germany, who arrived at the country via air travel on 8 th March 

Authors state no conflict of interest.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Near East University (YDU/2021/87-1262). 

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