African swine fever has been haunting pork lovers in China for months. And, to prove that nothing is sacred, the traditional dish of Chinese people, the hallowed dumpling, has fallen victim to the virus, reports Shine.
The influenza was first detected earlier this month by an animal epidemic prevention team in Hunan Province in dumpling samples of nationally-renowned brand Sanquan Food. Later, dumplings from the same manufacturer also tested positive for swine fever in Gansu Province. Together, three batches from Sanquan Food were found to be contaminated with swine flu, including pork fillings, pork-mushroom fillings and pork-celery fillings.
Shanghai's market supervision department quickly ordered a citywide inspection of all supermarkets and stores in the wake of the scandal, but found no infected products. That being said, some supermarkets like Auchan still took down all Sanquan's pork-filled dumplings from the shelf to err on the side of caution.
Image via NetEase
E-commerce platforms like T-mall and JD also removed pork-related products from Sanquan, even though they were not from the problematic batches.
Last Sunday, Sanquan Food released an official statement, declaring that they had sealed affected batches of dumplings from every sales channel unhesitatingly. Meanwhile, they promised they would coordinate with local governments to investigate the source of the infection, while intensifying their checks on their food suppliers.
Swine fever poses no risk to human beings. "Nevertheless, we should still boil pork-related food thoroughly before eating them," advised Lu Hongzhou, secretary of Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre. "After all, our knowledge of swine flu is still very limited."
[Cover image via Wikipedia]
