Teresa López Pavón Sevilla

Seville

Updated Wednesday, March 6, 2024-13:02

  • Health What is hepatitis A, how is it transmitted and what are its effects?

The

Junta de Andalucía

has located the importer, which is a company from Huelva, and the distributor, which is a company from Seville, of the

strawberries contaminated with the hepatitis A virus

from

Morocco

and that entered Spain through the Port of Algeciras.

As reported this Wednesday by the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, that item would not have been put up for sale and therefore has not been consumed.

Moreno assures that the responsibility for controlling merchandise arriving from foreign countries lies with the State through Foreign Health and regrets that the controls "have not worked" in the Port of Algeciras.

The Board received the first news of the detection of this batch of contaminated fruit on Monday afternoon and, "within 24 hours, we located the companies responsible," which assure that "the strawberries have not reached consumers."

"Customs controls failed. We ask the Government to review their protocols because they are responsible for controlling what enters through Spain," added Juanma Moreno, during an intervention before the media alongside the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, with whom he had a meeting this Wednesday.

Several parties ask Brussels to act

The

delegations of PP, Ciudadanos and Vox

in the European Parliament have asked the European Commission to intervene following the health alert after the presence of

Hepatitis A

was detected in strawberries imported from

Morocco

at some entry points of the product in Spain.

Different parliamentary sources have indicated that the PP delegation is working on drafting a parliamentary question to the European Commission in this regard, while Ciudadanos will ask for more controls linked to the Tangier Med port.

MEP Jorge Buxadé has gone one step further, demanding that the European Commission "absolutely, immediately and completely prohibit the importation of strawberries from Morocco" through a

formal letter addressed to the European Commissioners

for Food Health. Agriculture, and Environment, Stella Kyriakides, Janusz Wojciechowski and Virginijus Sinkevicius, respectively.

The Valencian Farmers Association (AVA-Asaja) already showed its "concern" this Tuesday and demanded "urgent measures" from the central government and the

European Union

(EU) in response to a notification issued this Monday on the community portal RASFF (Rapid Alert System Feed). and Food) that warned of "presence of Hepatitis A in strawberries from Morocco" detected at an entry point in Spain.

According to this notification, the risk decision

is "serious" because it exceeds the "maximum permitted level"

of this substance which, according to AVA-Asaja in a statement, "poses a danger to public health and may have appeared in the food." for irrigating farms with sewage."