China News Service, November 12th. Bi Kexin, Director of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau of the General Administration of Customs, revealed on the 12th that by 24:00 on November 11, a total of 873,475 samples were sampled and tested by customs across the country, of which 13 were positive for nucleic acid, and others 873462 samples were all negative.
On November 12, the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism held a press conference on strengthening the prevention and control of the winter epidemic and the in-depth development of the patriotic health campaign.
A reporter asked at the meeting: What measures have the relevant departments taken to prevent the risk of imported cold chain food from the new crown pneumonia epidemic? What are the regulatory measures for imported cold chain food that has entered our domestic market?
Bi Kexin said that in order to effectively prevent the risk of imported cold chain food from the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the national customs has further increased the quarantine of imported cold chain food.
One is to further strengthen source control.
The General Administration of Customs has further strengthened communication and consultation with the competent authorities of exporting countries, requiring them to follow the supervision guidelines issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to supervise and urge domestic food exporters to China to implement the FAO and WHO food business guidelines. Strictly prevent the food and its packaging exported to China from being contaminated by the new crown virus in all aspects of the production, processing, storage and transportation process.
The General Administration of Customs also notified the competent authorities of exporting countries of the "Technical Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of New Coronavirus in the Production and Operation of Cold Chain Foods" and the "Technical Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of New Coronavirus in the Production and Operation of Cold Chain Foods" formulated by the National Health Commission.
Require food manufacturers exporting to China to implement various prevention and control measures in accordance with the guidelines. In order to supervise and ensure the implementation of the above measures, the General Administration of Customs uses a remote video inspection system to provide remote video to the competent authorities of exporting countries and export food manufacturers. Check and spot check.
So far, China has communicated and negotiated with the competent authorities of all 109 countries that have cold chain food export to China. A total of more than 180 video conferences and consultations have been held. China’s suggestions and requirements have also been approved by these competent authorities. Respond actively and widely.
The General Administration of Customs has accumulatively inspected 140 imported cold chain food production enterprises in 50 countries, and took measures such as suspension or cancellation of registration qualifications for 22 enterprises that found problems.
The second is to suspend the export of products from companies that infect companies that have gathered employees.
The General Administration of Customs has closely tracked the epidemic prevention and control of overseas cold chain food production enterprises, and has taken effective preventive measures in a timely manner. As of 24:00 on the 11th, 99 production companies in 20 countries where employees have been infected with new crown pneumonia have adopted a suspension of their product imports. Among them, 82 companies have voluntarily suspended their exports to China after the outbreak of the epidemic.
The third is to strengthen the risk monitoring of the new coronavirus in imported cold chain foods.
The implementation of the new coronavirus nucleic acid sampling test on imported cold chain foods, focusing on increasing the sampling and testing of imported seafood and other cold chain foods. As of 24:00 yesterday, a total of 873,475 samples were sampled and tested by customs across the country, of which 13 were positive for nucleic acid, and others All of the 873,462 samples were negative.
The fourth is to implement emergency preventive measures after the positive is detected.
In response to cases where the customs and localities have detected positive COVID-19 nucleic acid on imported cold chain foods or their packaging, the General Administration of Customs has implemented emergency preventive measures to suspend their import declarations for 1 to 4 weeks on foreign food manufacturers that have detected positives.
By 24:00 on the 11th, the General Administration of Customs had implemented emergency preventive measures on 8 overseas food production enterprises and 6 fishing boats.
Bi Kexin said that in the next step, the General Administration of Customs will, on the basis of continuing to do a good job in source control and risk monitoring, and strictly implement the "Preventive and Comprehensive Sterilization of Imported Cold Chain Foods" issued by the Comprehensive Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council on November 8. "Plan", effectively do a good job in preventive disinfection of imported cold chain food ports, strengthen cooperation with relevant departments, and strictly prevent the risk of the new crown pneumonia epidemic through imported cold chain food imports.