Living Covid found on frozen food packaging

Beijing, Oct. 18: China’s health authority has confirmed the detection and isolation of living Coronavirus on the outer packaging of imported frozen marine fish in the port city of Qingdao, in what it described as the first detection of its kind on the cold food chain in the world. The authorities in Qingdao, where a new cluster of Covid-19 cases were reported recently, conducted tests on all of its about 11 million population. No new clusters of cases were found after the tests, the local authorities said. In July, China suspended imports of frozen shrimp after the deadly virus was found on packages and the inner wall of a container.

The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday said it detected and isolated the living Coronavirus on the outer packaging of imported frozen cod (large marine fish) in Qingdao. The finding was made during an investigation to trace the source of recent infections reported in the city. It has proved that contact with packaging contaminated by living Coronavirus could lead to infection, state-run

news agency reported, quoting the CDC statement. It, however, did not mention the country from where the package was imported. It is the first time in the world that living Coronavirus has been isolated from the outer packaging of cold-chain food, the statement said.

The agency said the risk of cold-chain food circulating in China’s market being contaminated by the Coronavirus is very low, citing recent nucleic acid test results for samples taken from the business. A total of 2.98 million samples had been tested across the country by September 15. —