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| COMMENTARY |
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| Ahead of print publication |
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COVID-19 and food safety
Viroj Wiwanitkit
Department of Community Medicine, Dr DY Patil University, Pune, Maharashtra, India; Department of Tropical Medicine, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China
| Date of Submission | 15-Apr-2020 |
| Date of Decision | 30-Jun-2020 |
| Date of Acceptance | 30-Jun-2020 |
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Correspondence Address:
Viroj Wiwanitkit,
Department of Community Medicine, Dr. DY Patil University, Pune, Maharashtra
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None DOI: 10.4103/mjdrdypu.mjdrdypu_187_20
COVID-19 is a new disease that is the present big global public health problem. This infection is transmitted through closed contact. The respirator secretion and droplet are main sources containing of pathogen. In a publication in the journal,[1] “Ensuring food safety” is mentioned. In fact, this issue is very important but little mentioned.[2] The topic of food and COVID-19 should be mentioned.
In fact, COVID-19 transmission that is related to food is an interesting issue. At first, the disease is believed to be associated with wildlife meat contact in Republic of China.[3] The COVID-19 transmission might relate to eating behavior. When one eats food and cough, it is no doubt that the food will be contaminated and the contaminated food will be the source of further transmission. In many countries, such as Thailand, eating together is clarified as a main risk of local transmission of COVID-19. The specific preventive methods regarding food, eating, and food shop/restaurant are necessary during crisis. The basic suggestion for infection prevention is washing hand before and after eating, cooking well and avoidance of eating in group. In addition, good sanitation setting of eating room is also important. The air conditioned rooms, which are common in many food shops, are already confirmed as possible place of outbreak.[4] From a recent survey, few people who replied the questionnaire still not perceive of crowded eating place such as restaurant.[5] In conclusion, we usually perceived COVID-19 as a respiratory disease but its spreading now also looks like a food-related disease.
| References | |  |
| 1. | Ensuring food safety in the ongoing Corona Virus Disease-2019 pandemic. Med J Dr DY Patil Univ (In Press).  |
| 2. | Desai AN, Aronoff DM. Food safety and COVID-19. JAMA. 2020;19;323:1982. [doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.5877]. |
| 3. | Ji W, Wang W, Zhao X, Zai J, Li X. Cross-species transmission of the newly identified coronavirus 2019-nCoV. J Med Virol 2020;92:433-40. |
| 4. | Lu J, Gu J, Li K, Xu C, Su W, Lai Z, et al. COVID-19 Outbreak Associated with air conditioning in restaurant, Guangzhou, China, 2020. Emerg Infect Dis 2020;26:1628-31. [doi: 10.3201/eid2607.200764]. |
| 5. | Geldsetzer P. Use of rapid online surveys to assess people's perceptions during infectious disease outbreaks: A cross-sectional survey on COVID-19. J Med Internet Res 2020;22:e18790. |
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