“Our experts made calculations, based on the data obtained from the sample of passengers on the special flight arriving from Dhaka on Monday, in which 13 per cent of the passengers tested positive,” D’Amato told Il Messaggero.

“The result is very worrying: taking into account all the flights including those with a stopover that brought Bangladesh migrants back to Italy, there are 500 to 600 positive cases that have not been intercepted, going around Rome and other regions.”

Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that D’Amato’s estimate was backed up by Italy’s deputy health minister, Pierpaolo Sileri, who told Radio 24: “The number of possible positives from Bangladesh is around 600, work is underway to trace these people to allow us to make epidemiological links and test everyone.”

D’Amato said the region is “ready” to test all incoming passengers from countries with high infection rates of the virus, but stressed that the decision must come from federal government, also taking into account the repercussions on air traffic.

Referring to Monday’s flight from Bangladesh, in which 276 passengers were tested, D’Amato said: “For that flight alone, we employed 40 doctors and nurses for five hours, which means that air traffic also slows down significantly. The responsibility cannot be ours alone, every day thousands of non-EU passengers are arriving.”

Il Messaggero also reported that in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, it’s possible to purchase fake health certificates for as little as €36, allowing citizens to leave the country despite being potentially infected with the virus.

This was confirmed to Il Messaggero by Mohammed Taifur Rahman Shah, president of the Ital-Bangla association, which has been helping newly-arrived Bangladesh citizens in Italy for many years.

On Tuesday, Italy ordered the temporary suspension of flights from Bangladesh, due to the “significant number” of passengers infected on Monday’s flight, and the Lazio region is currently undertaking “blanket testing” for coronavirus among the local Bangladesh community.

Italian news agency Adnkronos reported that after a slow start on Monday, 300 Bangladesh citizens presented themselves for the voluntary tests on Tuesday, with “a hundred people” already in the queue outside the regional health offices on Wednesday.

The Lazio region is home to around 37,000 of the 140,000 Bangladeshis in Italy, according to national statistics institute ISTAT.