U.S. agriculture group raises concerns over mosquito-free requirement
While China's anti-Zika rules may upset some U.S. exporters, it's an international common practice for the government to take necessary measures to prevent the virus from spreading into the country, experts said on Wednesday.
The U.S. Agriculture Transportation Coalition has expressed concerns over the potential impact of Chinese mosquito-free requirements on their exports.
"This will most certainly disrupt the U.S. exporters' ability to deliver goods affordably and on time to foreign customers in China," the U.S.-based trade group said in a statement on August 10.
China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) updated on August 5 its list of Zika-affected countries and regions to include the U.S., citing the Zika situation report from the World Health Organization.
As of August 10, the list of Zika-affected countries and regions had expanded to 56 compared with 40 in March, showed a report on the AQSIQ website.
According to a joint announcement by the AQSIQ and seven other government departments in March, transportation vehicles and containers from Zika-affected countries and regions should conduct effective mosquito extermination measures. If no proof of such measures is provided, mosquito extermination should be carried out immediately at the port of entry.
The AQSIQ was not available for comment on Wednesday.
The Zika virus, a cause of a birth defect called microcephaly, is primarily transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes.
"Since no medicine or vaccine is available [for the virus], mosquito extermination is currently the best prevention measure," said Xi Zhiyong, a professor from Sun Yat-sen University, who is an expert in vector management. "Other key prevention and control measures include checking on people arriving from Zika-affected countries and regions."
Vectors are carriers of disease--producing organisms.
"Theoretically speaking, it is necessary to require imports to be mosquito-free if there is a risk of infected mosquitoes entering the country," noted Xi.
Reducing the density of the mosquito vector is key to virus control. Import risks of infected mosquitoes entering the country can't be completely ruled out unless the Zika-affected countries and regions can fully control the mosquito vector, Xi told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The increased virus cases appear to show that they cannot, according to Xi.
In the U.S., Zika is spreading from state to state, with a total of 1,962 virus cases reported as of August 10, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pan Hao, director of the Department of Acute Infectious Disease Control and Prevention of the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control & Prevention, told the Global Times on Wednesday that because Zika can be spread from human to human by the bite of Aedes mosquitoes, which don't exist in China, it is important for local quarantine authorities to prevent the species from entry.
There have been many cases of diseases spreading through international trade, said Mei Xinyu, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.
For instance, in May 2011, German health officials said that cucumbers from Spain were the source of an Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli outbreak in the country that killed three and caused hundreds to fall ill, media reports said.
"So it is the responsibility of the AQSIQ to take necessary measures to protect people from the virus," Mei told the Global Times on Wednesday.
He also noted that the regulatory requirements may have a certain impact on delivery times, but U.S. exporters, with advanced logistics and related services, should be able to make a quick adjustment to the situation.
China's anti-Zika rules have been in force for several months on imports from a number of countries and regions.
"At the beginning, the process was quite complicated because we never prepared a fumigation certificate before," a Shenzhen-based trader who only gave the surname Liu, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"We needed to check whether the components in the mosquito agent would affect the quality of the goods or react with the components of the goods," noted Liu. "It took extra time and money to get it done."
