Two Ecuadorian companies that export frozen shrimp to China were suspended

The General Administration of Customs of China suspended the imports of two Ecuadorian companies after detecting traces of coronavirus through nucleic acid tests in the packages of their frozen products.

In four samples of three batches of frozen shrimp that were exported to China by the companies Procesadora y Exportadora de Mariscos (Proexpo) and Exportadora de Alimentos (Expalsa), the remains of the virus were found.

As a preventive measure, the Chinese authorities will not accept export applications from these companies for one and two weeks, respectively.

China also announced that similar actions were taken with a Mauritanian company after traces of the virus were found in its packages of frozen sea snail meat.

In July 2021, traces of coronavirus were discovered for the first time in the packaging of Ecuadorian white shrimp from three local companies.

During the last year, Chinese customs also detected traces of coronavirus in refrigerated or frozen products from countries such as Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Brazil or Argentina. This motivated the Asian country to tighten its regulations for the importation of frozen foods, with mandatory tests for products from countries where the pandemic is still in progress.

According to the Chinese authorities, this transmission route could occur in port areas, while the press has already assumed that the initial outbreak of the pandemic, registered in the central city of Wuhan, was related to imports. Although in recent months that theory seems to have lost steam.

In recent days, China has registered an outbreak classified by the Global Times as the worst since Wuhan, caused mainly by the Delta variant and originating, according to official investigations, in the cleaning without adequate protection of an Air China plane from Russia in which an infected person had traveled.

The total number of active infected in mainland China today is 1,240; 21 of which are serious, according to the National Health Commission.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 93,289 people have been infected in that country.