By Massimiliano Borgia
The power supply does not transmit the Covid-19 virus directly.
As had already happened with Avian and Swine the virus is not transmitted through entry into the digestive system but, since it is a bronchopulmonary disease, it infects with the entry into the respiratory system.
It is the European food safety agency, EFSA to confirm it. "There is currently no evidence that food is a likely source or route of transmission of the virus - observes Marta Hugas, EFSA scientific director - The experiences with previous epidemic outbreaks attributable to coronaviruses, such as the coronavirus of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV ) and the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), show that no transmission occurred through the consumption of food. There is currently no evidence that coronavirus is any different. "
So it is not transmitted through ingestion. It is also not transmitted by dead animals or animal products such as eggs and milk. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) says that while animals were alive in China, the probable source of the onset of infection is now spreading among humans, primarily through respiratory droplets. that people give off when they sneeze, cough or breathe out. Just like many other influences.
"Scientists and bodies from all over the world - EFSA confirms - are monitoring the spread of the virus and there are no reports of transmission through food. For this reason, EFSA is not currently involved in the response to COVID-19 outbreaks. It is, however, checking the scientific literature for any new and relevant information. "
But, be careful; it would not be correct to say that "food" does not transmit the virus. Although it does not take root in the digestive system, the Coronavirus contained in wet droplets, settles on food as on any other surface.
Foods are made of "surfaces" such as plastic, glass, steel and as such they accept virions, that is, the smallest particles of a hundredth of a bacterium that are dormant waiting to parasitize the cells in life of a human organism.
By manipulating the food one can, therefore, come into contact with the Coronavirus virions exactly as with other objects.
But there are some differences.
Meanwhile, virus contamination is different from bacterial contamination. The quiescent virions are always and only those that have settled, they cannot multiply outside the human body (or, perhaps, of an animal). If the sick butcher sneezes unprotected on a freshly cut steak, virions are also deposited on the meat which, after hours, will always be in the same number. If, on the other hand, at the same butcher the steak falls on the ground or places it on an unsanified cutting board or touches it with dirty hands, this will host bacteria that will begin to multiply immediately and, after a few hours, there will be millions.
But the difference also makes the number of contacts that a food surface normally undergoes compared to the surfaces of other materials in public contexts: How many times is an entrance handle of an apartment building or shop touched? And a bar to stand on the tram? What about a banknote?
Usually food comes into contact with a few hands and few people.
Let's take the example of a fruit or a head of lettuce. It is touched at the collection, then touched (perhaps) for the transfer into a transport box, then again (perhaps) touched in the transfer in the storage warehouse box, then touched for the accommodation in a box for transport to the agri-food center or to the finally, the sorting center of the supermarket chain is touched to be placed on the fresh counter or to be packaged in packages or nets. A few hours or days may pass between all these manipulations. If the virions had settled, they could already be inactive, or they could have been partially removed by subsequent manipulations.
For meat and fish, the contacts are more or less the same, although in the slaughterhouse, in the cutting center and during portioning on the counter, the hygiene rules provide for daily surface sanitization and protective devices for personnel. The same rules apply to the sale of cheese where the risk of manipulation within the time of destruction of the virus is when the portion is cut. The same goes for cured meats. For bread, the handling from the baskets to the shelf and then to the sale always involves a loss of external parts, such as flour and crumbs, which detach, in part, even any virus.
The surfaces of the packs deserve a separate discussion, starting from the cans to get to the cans and envelopes.
But what can we do to reduce the risk of possibly coming into contact with Coronavirus through food handling?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published recommendations on its website that plan to prioritize the consumption of cooked food, especially meat and fish. Coronaviruses, in fact, are inactivated at 70 degrees. Thus, even pasteurization cancels the virus and pasteurized foods, such as those that have been pre-cooked above 70 degrees have eliminated all risks.
But the WHO itself recommends in Coronavirus times to accentuate "healthy lifestyles starting from a correct diet". If you go to see what the WHO means by proper nutrition it turns out that for many years it has recommended us to consume a lot of fruit and vegetables, even fresh.
Today we should intensify this fresh diet because, when we are more vulnerable, we must take care of our immune system by taking care of our intestinal microbiota and we cannot give up taking thermolabile vitamins together with antioxidants and other useful micronutrients.
For this reason, perhaps the best advice is to pay attention to the time of destruction of the virus.
Not much is known about the period of inactivation of the virus outside a living organism and perhaps it changes due to surface temperature, humidity, surface characteristics. Usually, Coronaviruses are inactive after 12 hours but a virus such as the Mers flu virus was found active for up to three days.
Furthermore, the virus does not suffer from the cold: in freezing, viruses can last two years.
To eat fresh fruit and vegetables, then better to buy and consume after two to three days. So it is better to choose what is best preserved: for example cabbage, artichokes, red chicory, ball lettuce, apples, pears, oranges, bananas
Better yet to buy packaged products: it is not very sustainable, but now it is better to do so.
The packaged fresh product has no longer come into contact with the hands of the operators and is protected from contamination once packaged with film (and not retina). This is also recommended by the National Agricultural Academy, which "invites producers and the Italian agri-food chain to prefer the placement on the markets, or in large retail chains, of pre-packaged fruit and vegetables in order to preserve food quality in an environment health and hygiene safety. In fact, the consumption of well-sealed products is a safe and hygienic strategy in a time of serious infection such as the one we are experiencing and allows access to shopping more occasionally to continue to maintain a healthy and respectful lifestyle ".
