Health officials intercepted and destroyed a batch of frozen shrimps imported from Indonesia after their packaging tested positive for Covid-19.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) said none of the shrimps were sold to Macao’s retail and wholesale markets.
The IAM said its staff adopted a contingency plan by sealing and destroying 23 boxes of frozen shrimps after the Covid-19 nucleic acid test (NAT) turned out positive. The bureau added that the surrounding environment was thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, while data about the staff involved will be sent to the health authorities for further investigation and follow-up.
The IAM has suspended all import applications from the Indonesian supplier for a week, starting from yesterday.
The bureau urged retailers and wholesalers to place special emphasis on the disinfection of their imported goods’ external packaging. The bureau also urged residents to wash their hands after touching imported goods from retailers, such as supermarkets, in order to “prevent the importation of Covid-19 cases”.
The IAM has reinforced the cleaning and disinfecting of the external packaging of frozen food products, as well as fresh fruit packaging, noting that 100,000 such boxes have been disinfected on average per week. The statement noted that 42,000 samples of imported foods underwent NAT tests from January until yesterday.
According to the Health Bureau’s Covid-19 pandemic prevention measures, staff engaged in the frozen food products sector must undergo an NAT test once every 48 hours, The Macau Post Daily reported.
