The National Service for Food Safety and Quality (Senasa) reported this Wednesday (15.07.2020/XNUMX/XNUMX) that Two refrigerators were suspended and another six temporarily excluded themselves from the existing permit scheme for exporting meat to China, after registering positive cases of coronavirus among its employees.
«This is done as a preventive measure and by mutual agreement with the sector, precisely to preserve a market as important as the Chinese one.. The country has 96 plants authorized to export to China. These cases are meat processing plants in which there was a case of Covid among their employees," the agency indicated.
According to sources from the agency, the temporary suspension will last for a period of 10 days "until the processes can be monitored and strengthened."
Senasa emphasized that "Argentina has not been excluded by China, as has happened with other countries."
As regards the suspended meat processing plants, they stated that four of these plants are for poultry meat, three for beef - two suspended and one self-excluded - and another for pork.
They also indicated that "Removing them from the list of exporters to China is a way of protecting the market in the face of the certainty that the Chinese authorities are very demanding. Although it has not yet been confirmed that it can be transmitted through food.
As for the procedures, they pointed out that "as soon as a case of coronavirus is confirmed among employees, the plant is stopped and a thorough examination is carried out."
«The Covid-19 case is isolated and the entire environment is examined. If necessary, the rest of the workers who may have had contact are placed under observation.", the sources added.
From this point on, "if everything is confirmed to be OK, work will resume. We are trying to get everything done within a period of 2 to 7 days maximum," they stressed.
China is the main destination for Argentine beef. Between January and May of this year, it accounted for 76% of the 328.170 tons exported by the country.
Source: Telam
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