The new outbreak of COVID-19 on June 11 in Beijing was linked to its fresh food market. Experts took thousands of samples of imported and domestic seafood, meat, and vegetables I China to test for the virus, which has been all negative.
It is the same result with the international health and food organizations' tests wherein they found no evidence that the novel coronavirus spreads through food or packaging. But since the new outbreak in Beijing, China has tightened import controls amid concern that the food from abroad may cause the outbreak.
They have banned products from certain foreign meat plants and asked exporters to confirm their shipments' safety, which raised concerns in the US. The two countries have a trade deal that involves huge volumes of food exports.
Stephen Hahn, the US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said that there is no evidence that people can catch the virus from food or food packaging.
"The US food safety system, overseen by our agencies, is the global leader in ensuring our food products' safety, including product for export," says Hahn.
But, authorities in China are still puzzled about the source as Beijing reported new cases after 55 days of zero incidents.
Beijing's New Outbreak Questions Food Safety From the Virus
According to reports, the traces of the virus found on a cutting board used for imported salmon in Beijing's Xinfadi market started the speculation that food might be contaminated by sick workers overseas, which have brought the virus into the country.
Health officials in China have acknowledged that contamination from overseas is just one theory. Additionally, a customs officer noted last week that the coronavirus's risk spreading through food trade was "extremely low," South China Morning Post reports.
In a public health bulletin issued this week by state media, they did not discourage eating imported food but only emphasized proper hygiene when handling them.
Though both China and Norway, the world's biggest salmon supplier, agreed that Norwegian fish was not the source of infection in Beijing, there was still a decrease in sales of seafood as products were pulled from the shelves in supermarkets.
Likewise, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN and the World Health Organisation has released guidelines which say, "it is highly unlikely that people can contract Covid-19 from food or food packaging."
Read Also : Wuhan Wet Market NOT the Source of Coronavirus But a Hotspot for a 'Superspreader' New Study Shows
Meat Imports Banned
China suspended imports from a pork plant in Germany on June 18 and a Tyson Foods chicken processor in the United States on Sunday, when a COVId-19 outbreak happened. Then on Monday, a beef unit under Brazil's Agra and a British pork plant owned by Pilgrim's Pride voluntarily stopped exports to China after workers tested positive, says the Chinese customs authority.
On June 18, the Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said that china would strengthen coordination and communication with other countries to ensure the quality and safety of imported food and agricultural products and protect the health and safety of Chinese consumers.
Though meat plants have become known hotspots for COVID-19, it has not been considered a vehicle of the virus transmission by international organizations. Even scientists are skeptical of the banning of the importation of food.
Food safety specialist Benjamin Chapman, who is also a professor at North Carolina State University, agreed that food was not a high-risk transmission route as there had not been any diseases around a common meal or packaging. He thinks that banning products from specific plants with outbreaks did not seem like a public health decision.
But he acknowledges the lack of research on food as a possible transmission route of the virus.
