中国、輸入冷凍食品のウイルス付着に警戒　倉庫作業員２人が感染

【北京ＡＦＰ＝時事】中国保健当局は18日、湾岸都市の天津にある冷凍食品の倉庫で働いていた2人が新型コロナウイルスに感染していることが確認されたと発表した。冷凍食品に関連した感染症例の報告が相次いでいることを受け、中国は同ウイルスが付着した輸入品に警戒する姿勢を示している。（写真は資料写真）
　昨年末に新型コロナウイルス感染症（ＣＯＶＩＤ-１９）が世界で初めて確認された武漢の当局は１３日、ブラジル産冷凍牛肉から同ウイルスの痕跡が検出されたと発表。
　別の４都市も先週、アルゼンチン産冷凍豚肉やインド産イカなどの輸入食品から採取した検体が、同ウイルス検査で陽性反応を示したと報告した。
　税関当局幹部は先週の会見で、全国でこれまでに冷凍輸入品から採取した８０万以上の検体を調べ、海外の供給業者９９社からの輸入を一時差し止めたと明らかにした。
　天津市によると、新型コロナウイルスに感染した作業員２人はいずれも、同ウイルスが付着した冷凍食品に接触していたという。
　一方で世界保健機関（ＷＨＯ）は、「食品やその包装から同ウイルスに感染するとの証拠は、現時点ではない」としている。
　新型コロナウイルスの発生当初は、武漢の海鮮市場と関係があるとされたが、中国国営メディアは、輸入食品が初期の感染拡大の原因であった可能性があるとの主張を強めている。
　中国政府は、流行の原因は依然謎であり、同ウイルスの起源は中国にはない可能性があると訴えており、米国やオーストラリアなどから激しい反論を招いている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/11/18-21:09）

Chinese health officials said Wednesday that two cold-chain storage workers in the port city of Tianjin were infected with Covid-19, as the country shifts focus to contaminated imports after a number of outbreaks linked to frozen food.
Workers in hazmat suits were painstakingly screening food shipments across a country which has largely brought domestic infections under control but now blames a resurgence of local infections on imports.
Mass-testing campaigns have been rolled out after reports of coronavirus traces on imported food and packaging, with state TV showing workers hosing down food transport trucks with disinfectant and inspecting packages of frozen salmon.
In Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged late last year, authorities said Friday they had detected traces of the virus on frozen beef from Brazil.
Four more cities reported last week that samples from imported food -- including frozen Argentinian pork and Indian cuttlefish -- had tested positive.
Customs inspectors across the country have so far tested more than 800,000 samples from refrigerated imports and suspended shipments from 99 overseas suppliers, senior customs official Bi Kexin told a press conference last week.
Authorities have stepped up screening since traces of the coronavirus were found on equipment used to process imported salmon after a June outbreak.
In Tianjin, officials said the two infected workers had previously both had contact with contaminated cold-chain food products.
Customs data in September showed that Chinese meat imports had increased by more than 70 percent this year as the country's food supply was disrupted by swine fever and heavy flooding which destroyed swathes of farmland.
The World Health Organization says there is currently no evidence that people can catch COVID-19 from food or food packaging.
Transmission of Covid-19 across countries on frozen food is possible but it has not been comprehensively studied so we do not know the extent of this spread, Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, told AFP.
Screening has been ramped up after the latest outbreak in Tianjin -- just over 70 miles (112 kilometres) from the capital Beijing -- was linked to food transport workers, amid growing fears of a second wave in winter.
Earlier this month, China banned visitors from countries including the UK and India and raised testing requirements for travellers from a number of others.
State media has also ramped up claims that imported food could have been to blame for the initial outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus was first linked to a seafood market.
Beijing insists that the source of the initial outbreak remains a mystery and that it may not have originated in China -- a claim vigorously disputed by countries from the US to Australia.
The foreign ministry also floated a conspiracy theory earlier this year that the US military may have brought the virus to Wuhan last year.