On Sunday, China's customs officials disclosed they had halted shipments of chicken products from a US meat processing facility owned by Tyson Inc. that had been infected by the highly-contagious novel coronavirus.
The General Customs Administration stated it had decided on the suspension on its website after the processor said it had confirmed a cluster of virus cases at its facility in Springdale, Arizona.
Tyson's spokesperson Gary Mickelson said the company was assessing the issue, adding it is cooperating with local health officials to make sure its food is produced in full compliance with government's safety standards.
The suspension implemented on Sunday covered poultry imports that have arrived in China or are about to be shipped in the country, China's General Administration of Customs revealed. The Customs order did not specify the quantity of imports that the Tyson plant supplied, or other information regarding its products.
According to Mickelson, their main priority is the safety and well-being of the team members. "We work closely with the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service to ensure that we produce all of our food in full compliance with safety requirements," Mickelson said in an email to The Associated Press, as reported by Kelly Tyko of USA Today.
The US food processing firm disclosed earlier this month that it had carried out COVID-19 testing of its employees in northwest Arkansas and discovered that 13 percent (481) had been infected with the disease.
The latest incident underscores the risks of impediment to the normal flow of trade in the wake of the global health crisis. It also brings to fore the hardships in imposing the Phase 1 trade agreement signed by China and the US in January, under which Beijing agreed to purchase an additional $200 billion worth of US products and services.
Chinese authorities gave Tyson Foods the authorization to export chicken to China from all 36 of the company's processing facilities in the US, in December last year.
Scientists and medical experts said that the coronavirus is usually transmitted through respiratory droplets, not food. During the past days, however, Chinese authorities have fast-tracked its testing of food products following the surge in coronavirus cases that was traced to a major food market in Beijing.
The positive results found the Arkansas plants are not the first for Tyson. In May, it announced that around 570 employees tested positive at a processing plant in Wilkes County, North Carolina. A month before that, Tyson suspended operations at an Iowa pork plant after over two dozen staff tested positive for the virus.
