Phoenix TV:
Since the COVID-19 outbreak at Beijing's Xinfadi market, have related departments sent staff to the market for food testing? What was the result? Thank you.
Zhang Zhiqiang:
Thanks for your question. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Health Commission has paid close attention to the relationship between food and coronavirus. We have conducted research on information collected both at home and abroad, analyzed risks in a timely manner, and stayed on high alert to prevent the transmission of the virus through food. After the virus was found on food and environmental samples at the Xinfadi market in June, we adopted swift measures to monitor food contamination across the country. Under the unified leadership of the local joint epidemic prevention and control mechanism, we asked provincial-level health commissions to carry out special testing for frozen aquatic products and meat imported from abroad, transported via cold chains, and sold at the market. We require that local health commissions should report the risk-monitoring results in a timely manner if any hidden risks are found. As of July 2, over 50,000 food samples were tested in provinces such as Zhejiang, Yunnan and Henan. All samples came back negative. Thank you.
