cold chain Photo:VCG
The packaging of domestic chicken drumsticks produced in East China's Anhui Province, which recently tested positive to the coronavirus, was not contaminated in Anhui, but instead possibly contaminated in cold-chain logistics or from other links outside the province, the local epidemic control team announced Thursday.
The case is the first report so far of COVID-19 being found on cold chain food products from local sources. Lai'an authority issued a letter asking logistics links outside the province to perform complete investigations.
"The nucleic acid test results on related people and objects in Lai'an county were all negative, and it was not the domestic chicken drumsticks that had a problem," the authority stressed in the announcement.
The county has carried out nucleic acid tests on 423 samples taken from the company where the chicken drums were produced, including raw materials, production lines, cold chain transfer vehicles in the factory, offices and cold storage, all of which have returned negative results, Lai'an's epidemic control team announced on Wednesday.
The drumsticks were from a Lai'an-based subsidiary of US food giant Cargill. The nucleic acid tests performed on all 2,712 staff at the company came back negative.
Cargill chicken drumsticks that tested positive for COVID-19 in Anhui Province were transported, stocked and sent for inspection by the distributors, Cargill told Global Times on Thursday.
Cargill is joining the local authorities in investigating the case, Miao Jie, a communications employee at Cargill, told the Global Times on Thursday.
The case was found in Wuxi of East China's Jiangsu Province. A supermarket logistics center in Liangxi district of Wuxi bought the products from the Cargill subsidiary, and a test sample returned positive traces of the coronavirus.
Wuxi's authority then asked Lai'an to help investigate the matter, Lai'an authority said.
The case has triggered speculations about the true source of the contamination. An immunology expert, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times on Wednesday that it is likely to have been contaminated by imported food products carrying the coronavirus during cold chain transportation.