The first case to reach Italy has been identified in a patient in Rome. 

The Ministry of Health has announced that the new covid-19 mutation spreading through the UK was confirmed in a subject who returned in recent days from the United Kingdom.

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"The Scientific Department of the Policlinico Militare del Celio, which is collaborating with the Istituto Superiore della Sanità in this emergency, has sequenced the genome of coronavirus from a subject who tested positive with the variant found in recent weeks in Britain," the Italian Health Ministry wrote in a note. "The patient, and his cohabitant who returned in recent days from the United Kingdom, on a flight that landed at Fiumicino airport, are in isolation and have followed, together with other family members and close contacts, all procedures established by the Ministry of Health."

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This new variant was identified in recent months in Great Britain.  Because of its characteristics, particularly its rapidity of transmission, which semms to be up to 70 percent higher than the one that has been dominant until now, the British government has decided on Saturday, 19 December, a series of new containment measures.

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