THERE is no proof the Dragons’ rugby match with Italian team Benetton team caused a big increase in confirmed coronavirus cases in Gwent, a medical expert has claimed.

Earlier this month, the Newport-based side faced Benetton, based in Treviso, which is at the epicentre of Europe’s worst outbreak of the deadly disease with 9,134 people having now died in the country.

Nearly 2,000 fans attended that game at Rodney Parade on Friday, March 6.

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Since the end of that PRO14 clash, Gwent’s NHS Aneurin Bevan University Health Board has emerged as the worrying focal point of the coronavirus outbreak in Wales.

Almost half of the total confirmed cases in the country have happened in Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen.

But an expert in infectious diseases has maintained there is no evidence linking the situation in the area with Italy which has recorded 919 new coronavirus deaths today.

Dr Andrew Freedman, expert in infectious diseases and an honorary consultant physician at Cardiff University School of Medicine, said: "In any sort of epidemic you quite often get clusters like that but we haven't got the evidence of how it arose or where it arose because we are not doing any community testing at the moment.

"It is unlikely that a single sports event would be responsible for that, but without a detailed epidemiological study looking people who went and seeing if a lot of those are positive there's just no way of knowing, but I doubt it."

A source said Public Health Wales are aware of the risk of the game but "are not concerned".

74 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Gwent, among 180 across Wales, and the country-wide death toll has risen to 34.