In the nation’s strongest action since it began testing food items in June, a major Chinese city on Sunday banned imports of frozen meat from coronavirus hotspots. China’s top respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan, who advises Beijing on its Covid-19 response, downplayed the role frozen food can play in transmission. “It is relatively rare to detect the virus from imported frozen food,” he said. China has otherwise refrained from wider nationwide moves against imported meat due to the reliance of its population on the food source. The WHO estimates that almost one in 10 people in the world fall ill after eating contaminated food, leading to 420,000 deaths every year.

Source: Hindustan Times August 19, 2020 15:04 UTC