Exporting coronavirus: Alarm as China detects Covid-19 on packet of frozen squid brought in from neighboring Russia

Officials in a city in the northeast of China have discovered coronavirus on a package of frozen seafood imported from Russia. The virus was found during a routine inspection in Changchun, the capital of Jilin province.

According to the Beijing news agency Xinhua, local authorities found Covid-19 on imported frozen squid. Officials have since tracked down anyone who came into contact with the package, and placed them under medical supervision. They all tested negative for coronavirus, Xinhua reports.

On Monday, Russia’s agricultural watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, told the Interfax news agency that it had not yet received official notification from China about the discovery of Covid-19.

Checks for Covid-19 particles are now being conducted regularly by Chinese officials, and in August, customs detected coronavirus on the packaging of shrimps from Ecuador.

Jilin province is located in the north of China, and borders both Russia and North Korea. There is a railway line connecting the region to the major Russian city of Vladivostok, and a border crossing near Hunchun. As neighbors with a lengthy land border, Russia and China have a high volume of imports and exports. Bilateral trade between the nations is worth more than $100 billion a year, projected to rise to $200 billion by 2024.

In recent days, China and Russia have been ramping up their cooperation in the fight against Covid-19. According to Petrovax, a pharmaceutical company based in Moscow, Russian volunteers are participating in an international clinical trial of a potential Chinese vaccine called Ad5-nCoV. Developed by Tianjin’s CanSino Biologics, alongside the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, the vaccine appears to be safe, with no volunteers “showing any undesirable phenomena.”

The first registered case of Covid-19 occurred in December 2019, in the Chinese city of Wuhan. According to government figures, the country has registered 90,376 cases of the virus, with 4,737 deaths. Across the border in Russia, official statistics state that the country has registered 1,109,595 cases.

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