Officials in China say that the coronavirus has been found on the packaging of frozen foods in three cities in the country.
According to NBC News, authorities said that they tested a sample of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil and found the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen on the packaging. Brazil is second only to the United States in terms of active coronavirus cases, with over 3 million cases officially reported. Earlier, the virus was found in the southeastern city of Wuhu on the packaging of frozen shrimp imported from Ecuador. Before that, health officials in the eastern port city of Yantai found the coronavirus on the outer packaging of frozen seafood transported by a foreign ship. In the Yantai case, it remains unclear where the food was imported from.
The three incidents come in the wake of similar findings last month in Dalian, Xiamen, and Pingxiang. Chinese officials have been conducting screenings on food packaging ever since June when an outbreak in Beijing was linked to a wholesale food market. In a statement, the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission said that it had conducted contract tracing and carried out testing on everyone who may have come into contact with potentially contaminated food products. All the results were negative.
Meanwhile, health officials believe, for now, that food and food packaging are generally safe and not likely to be a source of transmission of the deadly virus. “There is no evidence to date of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses being transmitted via food or food packaging. Coronaviruses cannot multiply in food; they need an animal or human host to multiply,” the World Health Organization had previously said.