Coronavirus: Chinese government tells people to stop sharing food over outbreak fears

People are advised to stop taking from shared dishes with individual utensils

Related video: Timelapse video shows China's emergency coronavirus hospital built within 10 days (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Authorities in China have launched a campaign against communal meals in a bid to prevent coronavirus spreading further.

Chinese culture often involves diners using chopsticks to take food from the same shared dish.

But state media and restaurant groups are encouraging people to use serve portions to individual plates or bowls before eating.

“The risk of spreading COVID-19 through sharing utensils is not yet known, but plausible based on current knowledge,” Tarik Jasarevic, a World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman, told Al Jazeera.

Several cases of coronavirus are thought to have spread through families when sharing food during the Chinese New Year period.

The WHO, the China Centre for Disease Control, and China National Health Commission have not supported the campaign due to lack of direct scientific evidence.

"We can speculate that the virus can be spread on utensils due to the saliva, but without actually testing [or swabbing utensils], we can't give a definitive statement," Dr Danielle Anderson, a leading virologist studying COVID-19 disease at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, told Al-Jazeera.

However, she said that she would also advise against sharing food utensils.

The People’s Daily, a Chinese state-run newspaper, described the campaign as a "war against the epidemic at the tip of your tongue - a campaign for use of public chopsticks".

The death toll within China, where the virus originated, has passed 3,000.