The Chinese government recently recalled a batch of ice cream in China after it was detected it had been contaminated with the coronavirus.
The discovery was made in ice cream manufactured by Tianjin Daqiaodao Food Company in Tianjin Municipality in eastern China, reports Sky News.
Anti-epidemic authorities in the municipality are tracing people who may have been in contact with the products, and all products produced by the company have been sent to the municipal centre for disease control where they were sealed and contained.
The company’s 1662 employees have all been placed under quarantine and underwent nucleic acid testing on Thursday, January 21.
This discovery is unlikely to be a reason for panic and is most likely an isolated incident, says Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds.
“It’s likely this has come from a person, and without knowing the details, I think this is probably a one-off,” he told Sky News.”Of course, any level of contamination is not acceptable and always a cause for concern, but the chances are that this is the result of an issue with the production plant and potentially down to hygiene at the factory.
“We probably don’t need to panic that every bit of ice cream is suddenly going to be contaminated with coronavirus,” he concluded.
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