The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) announced in a statement yesterday that no abnormalities were found in the re-tests on cold-chain aquatic products from Vietnam.
The testing and announcement came after the General Administration of Customs in Beijing announced yesterday that a sample of the packaging of frozen pangasius fish imported from an aquatic product manufacturer in Vietnam (registration number DL476) tested positive in a COVID-19 nucleic acid test (NAT).
Pangasius, according to Wikipedia, is a “genus of medium-large to very large shark catfish native to fresh water in South and Southeast Asia”, with the term sometimes used to specifically refer to “the commercially important basa fish, P. bocourti”.
Following the announcement, the statement pointed out that the bureau immediately launched its contingency plan, with measures such as adopting source tracing, investigation and re-tests on the involved manufacturer’s products.
The statement added that local businesses have been requested to seal the products sourced from the manufacturer, while samples for re-tests have been collected. The bureau has also suspended import applications for the affected manufacturer’s products.
The bureau reiterated in the statement that samples of frozen aquatic products imported from Vietnam and their inner and outer packaging have undergone NATs multiple times and no positive results for the novel coronavirus have been found since July 2020.
Moreover, the statement noted that the bureau has also carried out disinfection and sample testing of imported products in the past three months in line with COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures, with only products that have passed the inspections able to enter the city.
The bureau, the statement underlined, has continuously adopted “prevention and regulation measures on imported cold-chain food products”, having also formulated contingency plans accordingly.
