A seafood vendor solicits customers in Beijing’s Sanyuanli Market in February. Photo: Li Hao/GT

A sample collected from the packaging of a batch of imported squid tested positive for the coronavirus in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin Province. Some products have been sold in a nearby city Fuyu and local authorities are tracking consumers and have asked them to report to the government. 

The squid was imported from Russia by a Chinese company in Huichun and distributed in Changchun where a sample tested positive for the coronavirus in a routine inspection on Friday.

Changchun authorities are tracking the products' sales chain. So far the remaining products, storage areas and people who contacted the products have tested negative.

The Fuyu health commission said on its WeChat account that 10 kilograms of the squid was sold at a local frozen seafood market. Authorities are asking people who had purchased the squid at the market between August 24-31 to register at their communities, and to get tested for the virus, said the city's Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Residents should also raise their epidemic control awareness, avoid gatherings and consuming frozen seafood. If they show symptoms of a fever and cough, they should be tested as a fever clinic at designated hospitals, said the government notice. 

In early August, two cities reported they had found traces of the coronavirus on the packaging of frozen food imported from Brazil and Ecuador, prompting stricter customs checks on cold-chain foods and suspension of imports by some companies. 

China Customs also announced the suspension of imports from Indonesian aquatic product manufacturer PT.PUTRI INDAH for one week, effective Friday, after coronavirus was discovered on the outer packaging of frozen ribbon fish from the company.

China has suspended imports from 56 cold-chain food companies from 19 countries where some staff were infected with COVID-19. Forty-one of the companies voluntarily stopped exports to China, China's General Administration of Customs announced on September 15.