The ox entered the country at Qingdao Port on August 7. (Representation)
Beijing:
The Chinese city of Wuhan said on Friday it had detected the novel coronavirus on the packaging of a batch of Brazilian beef, as it stepped up testing on frozen foods this week as part of a nationwide campaign.
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said in a statement on its website that it had found three positive samples on the outer wrapper of frozen boneless beef from Brazil.
The beef entered the country at Qingdao Port on August 7, and reached Wuhan on August 17, where it remained in a cold storage facility until recently.
The new coronavirus first appeared in the central Chinese city at the end of last year, in a market, and has spread around the world.
The registration code for the exporter of the beef shipment was 2015, said the commission, which refers to a factory owned by Marfrig Global Foods S.A., according to Reuters research.
Marfrig could not be reached immediately for comment.
More than 100 staff at the Wuhan facility have undergone testing, he said, and 200 environmental samples have been taken.
After taking drastic measures to control the spread of the virus among the population this year, China began testing imported food for the virus in late June as well.
As of September, it had found only 22 positive samples out of nearly 3 million, but with some port workers recently found to be infected with the virus, it has stepped up testing and disinfection of food imports this week.
Chinese authorities also discovered the coronavirus on the packaging of Argentine beef this week, and another sample of imported beef tested positive in Shandong, the province said on Friday.
China is the world‘s largest beef buyer, and Brazil and Argentina are its biggest suppliers.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
