In China, coronavirus infections have once again been detected on food items; this time not on fresh food at a Chinese market, but on frozen imported food.
There is growing concern that the coronavirus can also be spread via deep-frozen food. China reports having found it on chicken wings from Brazil and shrimp from Ecuador.
The chicken wings with the virus on them were found in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. The sample was taken from the surface of the meat. Tests on people who had come into contact with the chicken were all negative.
After frozen chicken meat from Brazil was found to contain traces of coronavirus in China, the government is urging its citizens to handle imported food cautiously. Virus particles were previously also found on deep-frozen shrimp from Ecuador.
All containers with food entering China have been routinely inspected since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis. On Wednesday, Chinese state media reported that the coronavirus was found on the packaging of frozen shrimp from Ecuador in the eastern province of Anhui.
A day earlier it was announced that it had been discovered on the packaging of imported seafood in the port city of Yantai in Shandong province. After similar findings in the ports of Xiamen and Dalian, China had already suspended the import of three varieties of Ecuadorian shrimp in July.
China began intensively inspecting shipping containers with meat and fish products from overseas at the end of June after a new outbreak was traced to a food market in Beijing, and suspicions arose that food stored in freezers could be a source of infection. Meat imports from various countries, including Brazil, Germany, and the Netherlands, have since been halted.
New Zealand is investigating whether there is a link with the recent outbreak in Auckland. A government official linked this new outbreak to imported food products. One of the family members of the infected cluster works in a cold storage warehouse where imported frozen food is stored. Ten of the fourteen new coronavirus cases are employees of the cold storage or their family members.
It is possible that viruses can survive to a limited extent in frozen food. The meat from Brazil is transported by ship and is en route for several weeks. In such a cold storage facility, the temperature is minus 20 degrees Celsius, cold enough to prevent food spoilage. However, viruses do not remain stable for long at that temperature and lose much of their potency.