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BEIJING (Reuters): The Chinese city of Wuhan said on Friday that it had detected the new coronavirus in the packaging of a batch of Brazilian beef as it increased testing of frozen foods this week as part of a national campaign.
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said in a statement on its website that it had found three positive samples on the outer packaging of frozen boneless beef from Brazil.
The beef had entered the country through the Qingdao port on August 7 and arrived in Wuhan on August 17, where it remained in a cold storage facility until recently.
The new coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city late last year, in a market, and has spread throughout the world.
The exporter registration code for the beef shipment was 2015, the commission said, which refers to a plant owned by Marfrig Global Foods SA, according to a Reuters search.
Marfrig could not immediately be reached for comment.
More than 100 employees at the Wuhan facility had been tested, he said, and 200 environmental samples had been taken.
After taking drastic measures to control the spread of the virus in the population this year, China began in late June to also test imported food for the virus.
By September, it had only found 22 positive samples out of nearly 3 million, but with some dock workers recently found to be infected with the virus, it stepped up testing and disinfecting food imports this week.
Chinese authorities also found the coronavirus on Argentine meat packaging this week, and another sample of imported meat tested positive in Shandong, that province said Friday.
China is the main buyer of beef in the world and Brazil and Argentina its largest suppliers. – Reuters
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