RIO DE JANEIRO,   (Xinhua) -- Waste water samples from Florianopolis, the capital and second largest city of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, contained COVID-19 traces on Nov. 27, 2019, a sewage water study showed on Thursday.

"Particles of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, were found in two samples of Florianopolis sewage collected on November 27, 2019," a research group from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Brazil said in a report published on the university's official website.

Gislaine Fongaro, co-author of the study, said several UFSC departments have participated in the research, adding that people might have been infected with the novel coronavirus a few weeks before they collected the waste water samples.

The report has been submitted for peer review.

Brazilian health authorities reported the country's first case of the novel coronavirus on Feb. 26, 2020.  ■