Cold-chain transportation in the frozen food industry may have caused a recurrence of COVID-19 cases in destination: Successful isolation of SARS-CoV-2 virus from the imported frozen cod package surface

• Published in: Biosafety and health Vol. 2; no. 4; pp. 199 - 201
• Main Authors: Liu, Peipei, Yang, Mengjie, Zhao, Xiang, Guo, Yuanyuan, Wang, Liang, Zhang, Jing, Lei, Wenwen, Han, Weifang, Jiang, Fachun, Liu, William J., Gao, George F., Wu, Guizhen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-12-2020; Chinese Medical Association Publishing House. Published by Elsevier B.V; Elsevier
• Subjects: Cod outer package; COVID-19; Frozen food; SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; Frozen food; SARS-CoV-2; Cod outer package
• ISSN: 2590-0536; 2590-0536
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bsheal.2020.11.003

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread in 220 countries/regions to wreak havoc to human beings around the world. At present, the second wave of COVID-19 has begun in many European countries. The complete control of COVID-19 is very urgent. Although China quickly brought the virus under control, there have been eight sporadic outbreaks in China since then. Both in Xinfadi of Beijing and Dalian outbreak of COVID-19, environmental swab samples related to imported cold chain food were tested nucleic acid positive for SARS-CoV-2. In this outbreak in Qingdao, we directly isolated SARS-CoV-2 from the cod outer package's surface swab samples. This is the first time worldwide, SARS-CoV-2 were isolated from the imported frozen cod outer package's surface, which showed that imported frozen food industry could import SARS-CoV-2 virus.
•Fifty out of 421 cod outer package's surface swab samples were tested SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid positive.•SARS-CoV-2 was isolated successfully as CPE were observed and the whole-genome sequence was achieved.•SARS-CoV-2 resulted in the outbreak in Qingdao felled in a European branch, which originated in Europe.