Authorities in the eastern Chinese port city of Yantai said the new coronavirus was detected on the packaging of imported frozen seafood. The confirmation on Tuesday (11) comes as administrations around the country step up monitoring of frozen food processing in response to outbreaks linked to the industry in the capital Beijing and the northeastern city of Dalian in Liaoning province.
The most recent contamination was detected at the Yantai Economic and Technological Development Zone in Shandong province on Sunday during blanket tests on frozen food and processing workers, the official Dazhong Daily reported.
The test results were reconfirmed by the city’s center for disease control and prevention on Monday, the report added, citing Yantai’s Covid-19 steering group. None of the people who had close contact with the seafood batch tested positive but they have been placed under quarantine, the report said.
Yantai officials said the affected seafood came in one batch from a foreign vessel that entered the country via Dalian port.
The officials did not specify what kind of seafood was involved or where it came from, saying only that a “small quantity” of the seafood had been reprocessed and exported, while the remainder was still in cold storage and had not entered the domestic market. China found traces of the novel coronavirus on the packaging and the inner wall of a container of frozen shrimp imported from Ecuador in early July, but the shrimp were not contaminated with the virus.
Andrea Britton, convenor of the Public Health Association of Australia’s One Health Special Interest Group, said that while coronaviruses could remain stable at low and sub-zero temperatures for a certain period, the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus was susceptible to common cleaning and disinfection methods.
People should wipe down packaging of frozen food and regularly use food areas with suitable disinfectants and wash their hands properly, she said. The Yantai government cautioned all imported food processing firms to strictly implement preventive and control measures against Covid-19.
(This article originally appeared on South China Morning post)
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