In the landscape of SARS-CoV-2 and fresh fruits and vegetables: The fake and hidden transmission risks.

From the first notification reporting to the WHO a cluster of coronavirus in Wuhan City (China), over 114 million cases of SARS-CoV-2 have been confirmed, with more than 2,530,000 deaths, and over 400,000 new cases and 10,000 deaths daily. Numerous viruses are susceptible to contaminate crops during growth, harvesting, handling, marketing and minimally processing, and these steps share one common factor which is human. Different studies showed that viruses might persist on different crops for periods of 2 to 14 days under different conditions such as refrigeration, household and freezing. Little is known on SARS-CoV-2, but preliminary studies showed that this virus might survive 24 hr on cardboard and 72 hr on plastic, materials used in fruits and vegetables packaging. Based on preliminary data, there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Certainly, to date there is no scientific evidence that SARS-CoV-2 might be transmitted by a contact with, or the ingestion of contaminated fresh or minimally processed fruits and vegetables. However, this risk even though being considered improbable, it cannot be "completely and definitely" discarded or ignored, particularly where the virus is spreading in the word. Some agencies indicated that in case some commodities and handlers are contaminated among the multiple people involved from the farm to the table, a cross-contamination may occur, and the risk of the contamination of food, food contact materials, and packaging from infected but asymptomatic workers should not be discarded even though considered "Very Low = meaning very rare but cannot be excluded."