The capital of the southern province of Guangdong in China has lifted imports of frozen meat, fish and seabirds from countries with coronavirus outbreaks as Beijing intensifies control of cool foods as a possible carrier of the disease.
Authorities in Guangzhou on Sunday announced the temporary ban on hotspots of viruses, without naming specific countries, and ordered all workers who were in contact with frozen goods to undergo RNA testing for Covid-19.
Guangdong is the most popular province of China with 113m inhabitants and is a major production hub responsible for more than a 10th of the country’s economic growth. In the first half of 2020, Guangzhou, the provincial capital, imported more than $ 665 million in frozen meat, fish and seabirds.
Last week, Shenzhen, the city of Guangdong on the Chinese mainland border with Hong Kong, said a sample collection of imported frozen chicken wings from Brazil tested positive for the virus.
The Brazilian government denied the allegations, pointing out that World Health Organization experts said there was no evidence that frozen food as its packaging was a risk factor for the spread of the virus.
But Chinese officials continue to worry about the trade in cool food. Since the end of June, when Chinese customs launched widespread swabbing of imported goods, there have been 10 incidents of frozen goods as their tests have been positive.
Xi Chen, a public health academic at Yale University, said the positive tests were likely triggered by lingering genetic material from a dead virus that would be impossible to infect humans.
“China thinks the virus is under control, so it wants to use all possible means to prevent a return. . . but we need to look at science and develop measures that do not disrupt international trade, ”said Mr Chen.
He added that worldwide oversight of imports by epidemiologists was needed to confirm if the concerns were warranted.
A Guangdong official working on coronavirus prevention said he did not expect a ban on the ban, but that it was necessarily stricter at this initial stage.
“At the moment, there is a lot that we still have to resolve, including the source of the infection and the extent of its spread,” said the official, who declined to be named. “Like what happened in Shenzhen, a place with an enormous stream of people, we are running against a time.”
Guangdong has launched a test station spanning the entire supply chain of a grocery and restaurant chain backed by technology company Alibaba, after finding that one of its employees in Shenzhen was infected.
On Saturday, Fresh Hippo announced that it is temporarily closing 21 stores throughout Shenzhen. Authorities have dispatched teams to 36 Fresh Hippo stores as well as 12 warehouses and processing plants across the province.
The chain of supermarkets and eateries, offering fresh produce from shops in busy shopping malls, is a central part of Alibaba’s efforts to add brick and mortar stores to its e-commerce empire.
Last week, Ecuador’s trade minister said a deal had been negotiated with China to restart Latin American nation’s frozen shrimp imports. In July, China stopped some imports from Ecuador after collecting samples from shipping positive tests for Covid-19.
