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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaPeople & Culture

Coronavirus found on frozen food, packaging from South America

  • Pathogen detected on chicken wings imported from Brazil at market in Shenzhen, but no human infections reported
  • Virus also found in Xian on packaging for frozen shrimp from Ecuador

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The coronavirus has been found on frozen food and packaging imported to China from South America. Photo: Shutterstock
Phoebe Zhang
Traces of the coronavirus have been detected in two Chinese cities on food and packaging imported from South America, prompting wide-scale testing.

In Xian, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi province, a sample of packaging on frozen shrimp from Ecuador tested positive for the pathogen on Wednesday night, provincial authorities said on Thursday.

Further tests were being carried on other products and people who had been in contact with them, they said.

Meanwhile, authorities in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, said they had found the coronavirus on the surface of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil.

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Other food products were being tested for the virus, they said.

The sample was found positive for the virus during routine sample tests in Longgang district on Tuesday, and confirmed during a re-examination by the city and the Guangdong Centre for Disease Control and Prevention the next day, an official notice from the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission said on Thursday morning.

All personnel who might have come in contact with the product were given nucleic tests, close contacts of the sample were being monitored and all stored products had been tested and all were found to be negative to the virus, the notice said.

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