The city of Lanzhou located in western China stated on Saturday that it had detected the new coronavirus or COVID-19 on the packaging of a batch of shrimp imported from Saudi Arabia, as China increased the testing of the frozen foods, as per reports.
The Lanzhou Municipal Health Commission mentioned in a statement on the website that it had discovered one positive sample on Friday on the inner part of the packaging of the imported frozen shrimp from Saudi Arabia that had passed through the customs in the coastal city of Tianjin.
COVID-19 on Food Packaging
The cold storage plant in Lanzhou where the case of the virus got discovered had been temporarily shut down, all the employees from the plant had been tested all the food involved was sealed and the whereabouts of all the food items sold had been determined, the statement read.
The commission mentioned that the shrimp had got purchased by the Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products Co Ltd, entered the nation on October 21, and reached Lanzhou on November 8. The positive sample found in Lanzhou followed the detection of the virus on the packaging of a batch of beef from Brazil in Wuhan on Friday and on beef samples from Argentina in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces this week.
The World Health Organization stated that the risk of getting infected with the deadly novel virus from frozen food is low, but China has repeatedly sounded alarms after the detection of the virus on the imported food products, triggering disruptive import bans.
The deadly virus outbreak has created a major stir around the world in recent times infecting more than 53.4 million people worldwide and claimed the lives of over 1.3 million people globally. An effective vaccine is expected for the public by the first quarter of 2021. However, Russia has already registered a vaccine named 'Sputnik V', but experts have raised their doubts about the efficacy of the vaccine.
