The western Chinese city of Lanzhou said on Saturday it had detected the new coronavirus in the packaging of a batch of shrimp imported from Saudi Arabia, as China intensifies testing of frozen foods.
The Lanzhou Municipal Health Commission said in a statement on its website that it had found a positive sample on Friday on the internal packaging of frozen shrimp imported from Saudi Arabia that had passed through customs in the coastal city of Tianjin.
The cold storage plant in Lanzhou where the case was discovered had been temporarily closed, all employees at the plant had been examined, all food involved was sealed and the whereabouts of all food sold had been determined, according to the statement.
The commission said the shrimp had been purchased by Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products Co Ltd, entered the country on October 21, and arrived in Lanzhou on November 8.
The positive sample in Lanzhou follows the detection of the virus in the packaging of a batch of Brazilian meat in Wuhan on Friday, and in samples of Argentine meat in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces this week.
The World Health Organization says the risk of contracting Covid-19 from frozen foods is low, but China has repeatedly sounded alarms after detecting the virus in imported food products, prompting disruptive import bans.
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