At the Dairy Industry Innovation Institute (Instytut Innowacji Przemysłu Mleczarskiego Sp. z o.o.), a methodology for testing the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in swabs from food packaging and in dairy products such as UHT milk, powdered dairy products, and cheeses has been developed and validated. The method implemented at the Institute complies with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations by employing nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT). An example of a method based on this technique is RT-PCR, which serves as the primary test for detecting COVID-19 infection in patients. The RT-LAMP (reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification) method developed at the Institute was also modeled on the method used for testing human genetic material for SARS-CoV-2. In this method, two genes characteristic exclusively of SARS-CoV-2 are detected: the N gene, which encodes the nucleocapsid protein, and the S gene encoding the surface spike protein. The method detects the genetic material of all coronavirus variants known at present: British, South African, Brazilian, and Indian.
Testing food packaging and dairy products for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid is intended to facilitate the export of dairy commodities, particularly to the Chinese market, by fulfilling stringent trade requirements in this domain, as well as to strengthen consumer confidence in dairy product safety during the pandemic.
