?:abstract
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Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Colombia was first diagnosed in a traveler arriving from Italy on February 26, 2020 However, limited data are available on the origins and number of introductions of COVID-19 into the country We sequenced the causative agent of COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), from 43 clinical samples we collected, along with another 79 genome sequences available from Colombia We investigated the emergence and importation routes for SARS-CoV-2 into Colombia by using epidemiologic, historical air travel, and phylogenetic observations Our study provides evidence of multiple introductions, mostly from Europe, and documents >12 lineages Phylogenetic findings validate the lineage diversity, support multiple importation events, and demonstrate the evolutionary relationship of epidemiologically linked transmission chains Our results reconstruct the early evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2 in Colombia and highlight the advantages of genome sequencing to complement COVID-19 outbreak investigations
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