Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec;48(6):971-974.
doi: 10.1007/s15010-020-01471-y. Epub 2020 Jul 3.

No SARS-CoV-2 detection in the German CAPNETZ cohort of community acquired pneumonia before COVID-19 peak in March 2020

Marcus Panning  1 , Julius Wiener  2 , Kathrin Rothe  3 , Jochen Schneider  4 , Mathias W Pletz  5   6 , Gernot Rohde  7   6   8 , Jan Rupp  9   6 , Martin Witzenrath  10   6   11 , Christoph D Spinner  4 ; Members of the CAPNETZ study group
Collaborators, Affiliations

No SARS-CoV-2 detection in the German CAPNETZ cohort of community acquired pneumonia before COVID-19 peak in March 2020

Marcus Panning et al. Infection. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Purpose: The first SARS-CoV-2 cases in Europe were reported in January 2020. Recently, concern arose on unrecognized infections before this date. For a better understanding of the pandemic, we retrospectively analyzed patient samples for SARS-CoV-2 from the prospective CAPNETZ study cohort.

Methods: We used nasopharyngeal swab samples from a cohort of well characterized patients with community acquired pneumonia of the CAPNETZ study group, recruited from different geographic regions across Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland between 02nd December 2019 and 28th April 2020. Multiplex real-time RT-PCR for a broad range of respiratory pathogens and SARS-CoV-2 real-time RT-PCR were performed on all samples.

Results: In our cohort, respiratory pathogens other than SARS-CoV-2 were detected in 21.5% (42/195) of patients with rhinovirus as the most frequently detected pathogen. The detection rate increased to 29.7% (58/195) when SARS-CoV-2 was included. No SARS-CoV-2 positive sample was detected before end of March 2020.

Conclusions: Respiratory viral pathogens accounted for a considerable number of positive results but no SARS-CoV-2 case was identified before the end of March 2020.

Keywords: Community acquired pneumonia; Epidemiology; Multiplex RT-PCR; Respiratory pathogens; SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No conflict of interest to declare by all authors.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
a Total number of patients and fraction of patients tested positive or negative for a respiratory pathogen using multiplex real-time RT-PCR (excluding SARS-CoV-2) per calendar week from week 48/2019 to 17/2020. b Number of patients tested positive for a respiratory pathogen per calendar week. c SARS-CoV-2 positive patients from calendar week 48/2019 to 17/2020. Broken line indicates epidemic curve of reported cases in Germany, solid vertical line denotes first reported case in Germany
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, Li X, Yang B, Song J, Zhao X, Huang B, Shi W, Lu R, Niu P, Zhan F, Ma X, Wang D, Xu W, Wu G, Gao GF, Tan W. China Novel Coronavirus I, Research T (2020) A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China. N Engl J Med. 2019;382(8):727–733. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med. 2020;26(4):450–452. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, Ren L, Zhao J, Hu Y, Zhang L, Fan G, Xu J, Gu X, Cheng Z, Yu T, Xia J, Wei Y, Wu W, Xie X, Yin W, Li H, Liu M, Xiao Y, Gao H, Guo L, Xie J, Wang G, Jiang R, Gao Z, Jin Q, Wang J, Cao B. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020;395(10223):497–506. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Spiteri G, Fielding J, Diercke M, Campese C, Enouf V, Gaymard A, Bella A, Sognamiglio P, Sierra Moros MJ, Riutort AN, Demina YV, Mahieu R, Broas M, Bengner M, Buda S, Schilling J, Filleul L, Lepoutre A, Saura C, Mailles A, Levy-Bruhl D, Coignard B, Bernard-Stoecklin S, Behillil S, van der Werf S, Valette M, Lina B, Riccardo F, Nicastri E, Casas I, Larrauri A, Salom Castell M, Pozo F, Maksyutov RA, Martin C, Van Ranst M, Bossuyt N, Siira L, Sane J, Tegmark-Wisell K, Palmerus M, Broberg EK, Beaute J, Jorgensen P, Bundle N, Pereyaslov D, Adlhoch C, Pukkila J, Pebody R, Olsen S, Ciancio BC. First cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the WHO European Region, 24 January to 21 February 2020. Euro Surveill. 2020 doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.9.2000178. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chinazzi M, Davis JT, Ajelli M, Gioannini C, Litvinova M, Merler S, Pastore YPA, Mu K, Rossi L, Sun K, Viboud C, Xiong X, Yu H, Halloran ME, Longini IM, Jr, Vespignani A. The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Science. 2020;368(6489):395–400. doi: 10.1126/science.aba9757. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms