A cargo ship unloads goods at a port in Nantong, East China’s Jiangsu Province on Monday. In the first quarter, container throughout at the port grew 51.9 percent year-on-year to 115,500 standard containers, and foreign trade container throughout soared 136.1 percent. Photo: CNSphoto

 
Returned samples from a batch of kiwi fruit imported from New Zealand were detected as positive for Covid-19 alerting authorities since some of the fruit had already been sold at a local supermarket in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu Province, according to a statement from the city’s official Wechat account on Thursday. 

According to the statement, the local health authority in Nantong received the notice on Wednesday and took immediate actions to determine when the fruit had been sold and to whom, identifying close contacts and sub-contacts, while also collecting environmental samples and disinfecting the effected store. 

The infected fruit had been on sale at a store in the city’s Haimen district. Control measures have been taken for the close contacts while nucleic acid samples of 14 staff and environment samples exposed to this batch of kiwifruit have been taken, test results were all negative. 

Health authorities in Haimen district urged residents who have been to the supermarket or had either consumed or handled the fruit from September 12-23 to immediately report to the health department and comply with necessary control measures.