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18th Jan 2021

Ice cream tests positive for Covid-19 in China

Cassie Stokes

Not even ice cream is safe.

An unexpected discovery was found over the weekend in China, when they found Covid-19 in ice cream.

It’s been over a year since the first case of Covid was discovered and it seems that the virus is still surprising scientists with its movements.

Daqiaodao Food Company in Tianjin has had to recall ice cream that was sold recently, and over 1,600 employees are now in quarantine.

Sky News reports that the discovery was made after three sample ice cream cartons “were sent to the Tianjin Center for Disease Control (Tianjin CDC) for testing.”

Dr Stephen Griffin told Sky News it may be a “one-off case.” “It’s likely this has come from a person, and without knowing the details, I think this is probably a one-off,” he said.

The good news is most of the cartons had yet to be sold on to retailers, only 65 boxes were sold to markets and everything that was bought is being tracked.

The food company produced 4,836 Covid-19 contaminated ice cream boxes. AP reports that 2,089 of them have already been sealed and contained in storage as of Sunday.

700 of the company’s employees have already tested negative for Covid 19.

Anyone who bought the products is being tracked and asked to trace their movements since purchasing the contaminated ice cream.

The ice cream’s ingredients included milk powder from New Zealand whey powder from Ukraine.

This isn’t the first time the virus has been found on imported goods. Over the summer China suspended imports of frozen shrimp after the deadly virus was found on packages and the inner wall of a container.

The World Health Organisation has said: “People should not fear food, food packaging or delivery of food.”

Topics:

covid,news