MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th August, 2020) There is no evidence of the novel coronavirus being food-borne, so people should not fear food products, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday amid reports of frozen chicken wings testing positive for COVID-19.
Earlier in the day, the authorities in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen said that coronavirus had been detected on a sample of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil.
"People should not fear food or food packaging or processing or delivery of food ... There is no evidence that food or food chain is participating in transmission of this virus and people should feel comfortable and feel safe," Mike Ryan, the executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said at a briefing.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, noted that China has tested a few hundred thousand samples of packaging and has so far found "very very few - less than ten - positive in doing that."
"We know that the virus can remain on the surfaces for some time, but the virus can be inactivated on your hands if you wash your hands or use alcohol-based rub. If the virus is actually in food - and we have no examples of where this virus has been transmitted as a food-borne, where someone has consumed a food product - the viruses can be killed like other viruses as well can be killed if the meat is cooked," she went on.
The WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the expert recalled, has previously issued guidance on how to work with frozen foods and live foods to keep people safe.
