China’s National Health Commission announced Thursday that only animals from “non-epidemic” areas could be sent to be slaughtered in China.
The rule is part of broad new coronavirus control guidelines China issued to meat processing companies.
Some of the others include demanding livestock and poultry products be virus free before arriving at Chinese plants, according to Reuters.
“Working places, including meat slaughtering, cutting, storing, and packing (plants), are mostly closed and densely populated environments with a low temperature, where the risk of virus-spreading is quite high,” the health authority said in another statement on its website.
The NHC also said meat products must pass nucleic acid tests for coronavirus and there must be inspections and certificates to prove it.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. saw dozens of packing plants shutdown due to coronavirus outbreak.