A dead rat! For the first time, Pudong Airport Customs intercepted vector organisms in inbound cargo

The Paper's reporter Deng Lingwei

On January 15, the reporter learned from Shanghai Customs that recently, when the Pudong Airport Customs carried out a pre-interception and disposal of an inbound flight, the customs officer found that the cargo packaging carried by the aircraft was damaged, and the damage was similar to rodent bite marks.

Pudong Airport Customs intercepts a dead rat in inbound cargo Courtesy of Shanghai Customs

After the discovery of dead rats, Pudong Airport Customs immediately launched an emergency plan, isolated the relevant goods on the spot, placed rat plates, mouse clips and other equipment for on-site control, carefully checked the signs of rat activity, and after confirming the presence of no other live rats, carried out rat removal, insect removal and disinfection treatment for the goods. Later, it was identified by the Shanghai Customs Vector Biology Laboratory that the captured dead rats were brown rats. This is also the first time that Pudong Airport Customs has intercepted vector organisms (rodents) in inbound cargo.

Brown rats, also known as rats and ditch rats, are omnivorous animals with strong reproductive ability and are distributed all over the world. The rodents themselves and the parasites on the surface of the body of the dead rats (rat lice) can transmit a variety of diseases such as plague, epidemic haemorrhagic disease, leptospirosis, scrub worm disease and other diseases by means of bites, blood sucking or contamination of their excreta.

In recent years, Pudong Airport Customs will move the customs forward, carry out the pre-quarantine interception and disposal of goods, and implement comprehensive pre-quarantine and disposal of health quarantine and animal and plant quarantine for goods entry, so as to minimize the circulation of goods before quarantine and reduce the risk of epidemic transmission.

Editor-in-Charge: Yu Kai

Proofreader: Ding Xiao