A warehouse with operations to prevent frozen foods from transmitting novel coronavirus opened Tuesday, Jan 12 in the Shangchong community of Qianshan.

The Zhuhai Agricultural Produce Logistics & Safety Testing Center facility is examining all imported cold-chain food arriving at citywide ports or being transferred from other domestic cities. The frozen produce undergoes nucleic acid testing, package disinfection, and source traceability before storage, sale, and processing.

The warehouse has floorage of 2,480 sqm (.6 acre) and is sectioned for loading and unloading, storage, disinfection, sampling and testing, offices, and accommodations. Three disinfection lines can sterilize 90 tons of frozen food daily at a rate of eight seconds per box.

Unloading [Photo by Wu Changfu / Guanhai App]

At least one sample is taken from outer and inner packaging and contents of each batch of products for nucleic acid testing. Frozen foods must receive negative test results and a disinfection certificate to enter local markets, according to Huang Jian'en, deputy director of the Zhuhai Market Supervision Bureau.

If a test result is positive, the sealed commodities will be sent to the Zhuhai Center for Disease Control & Prevention for re-examination, the workplace will be disinfected, and staff will face nucleic acid tests and health screening. Contaminated commodities will be returned to place of origin, destroyed, or converted to cooked products at high temperature.

As of Jan 11, local market supervision authorities had conducted nucleic acid tests on 14,333 workers, 21,476 products, and 28,061 environment samples as part of the crackdown on imported cold-chain virus transmission. They all tested negative.

For efficiency sake, owners of the commodities should reserve unloading and disinfection times in advance.