Chinese authorities allegedly found the novel coronavirus on the packaging of imported frozen seafood from the port of Dalian City, which recently had an outbreak.
The virus was allegedly found on the outer packaging of frozen seafood sold by three companies in Yantai, a port city in eastern Shandong province.
In a statement, the Yantai local government said the seafood was an imported shipment that arrived in Dalian but could not tell where it came from.
Last July, customs officers in Dalian, a major port in the northeastern province of Liaoning, announced that they had found a coronavirus on the packaging of frozen shrimps imported from Ecuador.
China subsequently suspended imports of three Ecuadorean shrimp producers.
According to the Yantai local government, some of the seafood sold by the three companies has already been processed for export, while others remain in cold storage.
However, a staff member of Yantai’s coronavirus outbreak response unit did not say whether the processed seafood was released.
It is said that the staff who handled the contaminated seafood were subjected to quarantine, and they were also negative in the coronavirus test.
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Coronavirus found on frozen seafood packaging in China
The latest outbreak of coronavirus in Dalian city allegedly took place in July, and the first case was working for a seafood processing company.
On August 9, it was reported that there were 92 cases of coronavirus in Dalian.
The novel coronavirus is believed to have originated in a market in Wuhan City in China that sells seafood and animals in late 2019.
President Donal Trump previously the US government is trying to find out whether the pandemic coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that US intelligence shows COVID-19 likely created naturally, as opposed to the theory that a laboratory in China made it. However, the source of the deadly virus is still a mystery.
The Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology denied the rumors that the new coronavirus may have been created at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such facility in February.