SHANGHAI authorities have carried out nucleic acid tests for staff workers at Shanghai Pudong International Airport after several confirmed COVID-19 cases were linked to airport personnel.

The National Health Commission said yesterday that it received reports of two new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases from Shanghai.

The two local cases are both residents in Pudong New Area in Shanghai and close contacts of two previously confirmed local cases — one is an airport cargo security inspector at Pudong Airport and the other is his wife, a hospital nurse, according to the commission.

Addressing a regular press briefing yesterday on the city’s COVID-19 control situation, Zhou Junlong, vice president of the Shanghai Airport Authority, said nucleic acid testing results of 11,544 freight transport personnel at the airport were negative, and swab samples of another 6,175 staff members are still being examined.

He added that the confirmed locally transmitted cases reported recently do not involve the passenger transportation section.

The airport authority is carrying out disinfection of the affected area and has reinforced protection measures for staff with the implementation of close supervision of cold-chain food operation area, Zhou said.

All personnel working at the airport’s cargo terminals and cargo areas underwent nucleic acid tests from Sunday evening to yesterday morning, according to the Shanghai Airport Authority.

Quarantine workers set up a temporary testing area in an airport parking lot to carry out on-site swab sample collection and testing.

So far, five freight transport staff at the airport have been confirmed positive for COVID-19. Among them, the wives of two of the staffers have also been confirmed infected.

By yesterday morning, authorities have tracked 55 close contacts, placing them under quarantine, and screened 2,541 others based on an official epidemiological investigation. They have all tested negative for nucleic acid tests.

Samples of food, objects and environment linked to the confirmed cases have been collected and all of them have been found negative in nucleic acid tests.

Xu Jin, deputy director of the Shanghai municipal administration for market regulation, said after the cluster of confirmed locally transmitted cases emerged, authorities checked more than 177,000 food businesses. More than 130,000 cold-chain food samples were collected and all tested negative.

According to the press briefing, the earliest two confirmed airport freight staffers did not have contacts with imported cold chain food. Their source of infection is assumed to be exposure to imported aviation containers from overseas. 

(Xinhua)