Study reveals that coronavirus remains active more than 20 days in frozen foods
Singapore researchers tested samples of salmon, chicken and pork. In some samples, the virus was present after 21 days.
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Salmon was one of the foods tested.
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Since the pandemic of the new coronavirus began to spread around the world, studies on the new virus have been proceeding at a breakneck speed. The most recent was produced in Singapore and reveals worrying conclusions. According to the data analyzed, the virus has the capacity not only to resist negative temperatures, but also remains active for up to 3 weeks in frozen foods.
As the researchers explain, cited by the British newspaper “Telegraph”, during the study, samples of the new coronavirus were placed in pieces of salmon, chicken and pork. The contaminated meat was then frozen, with the food being kept at the temperature at which it would be transported for import or export – between 4 and 20 degrees below zero.
Subsequent analyzes revealed that, after 21 days, the virus could not only be identified in frozen foods, but was active, thus being able to spread and contaminate humans.
These conclusions thus reinforce the idea that the appearance of new outbreaks in Asia may be related to the import of frozen food. “Recent outbreaks have surfaced in Vietnam, New Zealand and parts of China, where there were no cases a few months ago. Importing contaminated food and packaging is a viable source for such outbreaks and a source of cases within existing outbreaks, ”say the study’s authors.
“Although it can be safely argued that transmission through contaminated food is not an important infection route, the potential for contaminated items to move to a region without covid-19 to start an outbreak is an important hypothesis,” they stress.
It is recalled that even last week, Chinese authorities claimed to have found traces of the new coronavirus in samples of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil and in shrimp packaging from Ecuador.
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