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A Critical Review of Disinfection Processes to Control SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in the Food Industry

This version is not peer-reviewed.

Submitted:

14 December 2020

Posted:

15 December 2020

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Abstract
Industries of the food sector have made a great effort to control SARS-CoV-2 indirect transmission, through objects or surfaces, by updating cleaning and disinfection protocols previously focused on inactivating other pathogens, as well as food spoilage microorganisms. The information, although scarce at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, has started to be sufficiently reliable to avoid over-conservative disinfection procedures. This work reviews the literature to propose a holistic view of the disinfection process where the decision variables, such as type and concentration of active substance, are optimised to guarantee the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 and other usual pathogens and spoilage microorganisms while minimising possible side-effects on the environment and animal and human health.
Keywords: 
SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19 pandemic; food industry; disinfection trade-offs; one-health
Subject: 
Biology and Life Sciences  -   Food Science and Technology
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.

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