Cockroach-infested container seized, fumigated by customs authorities
Customs authorities in Xiamen, southeast China's Fujian Province, recently discovered about 2,000 live American cockroaches in an empty inbound container, People.cn reported on Thursday.
The infested empty container after disinfection
It is the largest amount of virus-prone creatures to be tracked down by the city's customs in recent years, the report said.
The dark brown cockroaches measured an average of 2 to 4 centimeters long. Customs officers undertook a full-scale disinfection of the container as soon as the insects were found.
An officer takes samples of the cockroaches after the disinfection.
American cockroaches, the largest of the Blattodea family category, are prone to carry harmful bacteria such as shigella dysenteriae, salmonella paratyphoid b, cholera arc bacteria and tuberculosis bacterium, said Zhang Ning, chief of the customs' health department, adding they are a vector of many infectious diseases.
