Beijing:
China banned imports from a prime US poultry producer and ordered a Beijing Pepsi manufacturing facility to shut Sunday as authorites clamped down on meals manufacturing and distribution amid a brand new coronavirus cluster within the capital.
Health officers additionally reported 22 new virus circumstances in Beijing, the place they’ve examined greater than two million residents as they search to include a wave of recent infections linked to a wholesale market within the capital.
Imports of frozen hen from Tyson Foods have been “temporarily suspended”, the General Administration of Customs mentioned, after a virus outbreak was discovered at one of many firm’s manufacturing services within the US.
Products from the agency which have already arrived in China might be confiscated, the assertion mentioned.
US meals and drinks large PepsiCo was additionally ordered to close down considered one of its snack-making crops in Beijing after a number of staff examined optimistic, firm spokeswoman Fan Zhimin mentioned.
She added that 87 shut contacts had been traced and quarantined.
More than 220 folks have up to now examined optimistic from the brand new Beijing clusters which have been traced to chopping boards used to deal with imported salmon on the metropolis’s Xinfadi market.
The market provides greater than 70 p.c of Beijing’s contemporary produce and has been closed, with officers on Friday advising residents to eliminate frozen seafood and bean merchandise purchased there.
Officials on Friday additionally introduced a nationwide marketing campaign to examine all contemporary merchandise coming from “high-risk countries” following stories of recent virus clusters at crops in Germany and the US.
Authorities are focusing on those that work in eating places, supermarkets, markets and meals supply couriers for testing, in response to Gao Xiaojun of the Beijing Municipal Helth Commission.
Dozens of communities have additionally been sealed off within the metropolis to include the unfold, with residents informed to keep away from non-essential journey and colleges closed.
Authorities are conducting exams in batches, in response to Gao, permitting them to course of as much as a million per day.
The new infections reported Sunday embrace a nurse — the primary well being employee to check optimistic for the reason that re-emergence of the virus simply over every week in the past.
The chief epidemiologist on the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention informed reporters Friday that the brand new outbreak had been “brought under control”, however Beijing would nonetheless see new circumstances.
The outbreak has additionally unfold to Tongzhou, the executive hub in Beijing the place key authorities places of work are positioned, well being officers mentioned Sunday.
Infections introduced in by Chinese nationals returning residence had accounted for almost all of current circumstances till the Beijing cluster.