A health expert has warned that Covid can remain on frozen foods for up to a month.
Professor Emily Bailey of Campbell University and her colleagues investigated how long Covid can last on frozen meat following outbreaks in Southeast Asia that occurred without any community transmission.
Prof Bailey said her research "suggested that packaged meat products, produced in areas where SARS-CoV-2 was circulating, could have been the source of the virus.
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"Our goal was to investigate whether or not similar viruses could survive in this environment."
In their study, the researchers conducted experiments involving four different types of meat or fish – beef, chicken, pork and salmon.
Each meat type was sliced into small pieces, which were dosed with 100 microlitres of diluted surrogate viruses that use spikes similar to those found on SARS-CoV-2.
These included phi 6, a lipid-enveloped RNA bacteriophage, and two animal coronaviruses — murine hepatitis virus and transmissible gastroenteritis virus.
Following this, the investigators stored samples of the infected products at both refrigerator and freezer temperatures.
The samples were stored for 0, 3, 7, 14, or 30 days.
Prof Bailey said: "Although you might not store meat in the fridge for 30 days, you might store it in the freezer for that long.
"We even found that the viruses could be cultured after that length of time."
The exact rate of survival depended on the particular viral surrogate and storage temperature, the team explained.
They added: "But overall, viruses survived for extended periods of time at high concentrations at both refrigerated and frozen temperatures."
The results are important because SARS-CoV-2 is capable of replicating within the gut as well as in the respiratory tract, Professor Bailey explained.
The researchers concluded: "The ability of SARS-CoV-2 viral surrogates like Phi 6 and animal coronaviruses to survive for varying extents on some meat and fish products when stored refrigerated or frozen is a significant and concerning finding.
"Continued efforts are needed to prevent contamination of foods and food processing surfaces, worker hands, and food processing utensils such as knives.
"The lack of or inadequate disinfection of these foods prior to packaging needs to be addressed."
The findings come as health experts and virologists across the globe have voiced concern over the latest strain of Covid-19.
Centaurus is the latest substrain of the Omicron variant and is rapidly spreading in India as well as making ground in the UK in recent weeks.
The BA.2.75 variant, or Centaurus, was first detected in India in early May, and after arriving in the UK, cases there have been moving in a sharp upward trend.
BA.2.75 has also been detected in at least ten other countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Germany and Canada.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has placed Centaurus in the category of a "variant under monitoring" - meaning there is fear that it could be more transmissible or bring on more severe disease.
At this point, the evidence is still being gathered and assessed. However, the World Health Organisation is also monitoring it closely.
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