China's health authority has confirmed the detection and isolation of living novel coronavirus on the outer packaging of imported frozen marine fish in the port city of Qingdao.
According to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is one of its kind in the world that a living coronavirus has been isolated from the outer packaging of cold-chain food.
The authorities in Qingdao, where a new cluster of COVID-19 cases was reported recently, conducted tests on all of its about 11 million population on which no new clusters of cases were found after the tests, the local authorities said. In July, China had suspended the imports of frozen shrimp after the deadly virus was found on packages and the inner wall of a container.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said it detected and isolated the living virus on the outer packaging of imported frozen cod in Qingdao city. The finding was made during an investigation to trace the source of recent infections reported in the city. It has proved that contact with packaging contaminated by living novel coronavirus could lead to infection, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the CDC statement.
However, the statement did not disclose the country from where the package was imported but said the risk of cold-chain food circulating in China's market being contaminated by the novel coronavirus is very low.
In 24 provincial-level regions across the country, a total of 2.98 million samples had been tested by September 15. The testing samples include 670,000 taken from cold-chain food or food packaging, 1.24 million from working staff and 1.07 million from the environment. The CDC said, only 22 samples from cold-chain food or food packaging have tested positive for the virus.
The National Health Commission on Sunday said there were 13 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported on Saturday all arriving from outside the mainland. There have been no new locally transmitted covid-19 infections.
The National Health Commission said the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases on the mainland has reached 85,672, on Saturday whereas 80,786 patients have been discharged after recovery. The death toll in the mainland death toll presently stands at 4,634.