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June 22, 2020

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US poultry firm’s imports banned, Pepsi plant shut

Source: Agencies | 05:00 UTC+8 June 22, 2020 | Print Edition

China banned imports from a top US poultry producer and ordered a Beijing Pepsi factory to close yesterday as authorities clamped down on food production and distribution amid a new coronavirus cluster in the capital.

Health officials also reported 22 new virus cases in Beijing, where they have tested more than 2 million residents as they seek to contain a wave of new infections linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market in the capital.

Imports of frozen chicken from Tyson Foods have been “temporarily suspended,” the General Administration of Customs said, after a virus outbreak was found at one of the company’s production facilities in the US.

Products from the firm that have already arrived in China will be confiscated, the statement said. The plant is located in Springdale, Arizona, according to a customs file of registered exporters.

China also suspended pork products from German pork processor Toennies last week following a coronavirus outbreak among hundreds of its workers. US food and drinks giant PepsiCo was also ordered to shut down one of its snack-making plants in Beijing after eight employees tested positive, company spokeswoman Fan Zhimin said.

She added that 87 close contacts had been traced and quarantined.

Two of the cases from the factory in Daxing District had been to the Xinfadi wholesale market, Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing center for disease control and prevention, said yesterday.

The factory has initiated an emergency response and took measures including sealing the products, disinfecting the environment and quarantining the personnel, according to Fan.

The information at the website of the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System shows the suspended factory mainly processes grains and produces potato-related and puffed food.

More than 220 people have so far tested positive from the new Beijing clusters that have been traced to chopping boards used to handle imported salmon at the city’s Xinfadi market.

The market supplies more than 70 percent of Beijing’s fresh produce and has been closed, with officials on Friday advising citizens to dispose of frozen seafood and bean products bought there.

Since the new outbreak, testing capacity has more than doubled to more than 230,000 tests daily at 124 institutions, Gao Xiaojun, spokesman for the Beijing Health Commission, said. If the tests are done on samples collected from multiple people in one test tube, the city can get results from almost 1 million people daily, he added.

The city has also prioritized the testing for employees of restaurants, grocery stores, wholesale markets as well as courier and food delivery firms. Gao also said that provinces including Hubei and Liaoning had sent about 200 people to Beijing to boost staff in laboratories, further helping to increase testing capacity.

China recorded 26 new cases nationwide yesterday, including three domestic infections in Hebei Province. One of the patients worked in Xinfadi, while the other two were close contacts with previously confirmed cases in Beijing.

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