The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has resumed surveillance inspections across the country as the number of COVID-19 cases have declined nationwide.
The decision comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports caseloads and hospitalizations as of early February were down by more than 53 percent from peaks reached in mid-January 2022.
On-site inspections resumed as of Monday, 7 February, according to the FDA, after being suspended on 29 December, 2021. In between, the FDA implemented several approaches to maintain its regulatory authority over the country’s food supply, including remote assessments and reviews of imported packages arriving at U.S. ports.
However, the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a trade group representing the domestic shrimp sector, said the agency’s refusals of seafood lines for January established “an unprecedented low for the month.” Just 33 entry lines were rejected for any reason, roughly half the total that was rejected in January 2021 and about one-third of the total refused two years prior.
“In the 20 years prior to last month, the FDA refused an average of roughly 163 entry lines of seafood in January,” the SSA said in a statement.
The organization also noted that the historically low refusal rates come as the U.S. is seeing seafood import totals reaching record heights.
The FDA also announced its inspectors continue to proceed with inspections that had been scheduled at foreign facilities in locations listed by the CDC as Level 1 or Level 2 sites for travel recommendation.
“Planning for additional foreign surveillance inspections is ongoing, with an anticipated goal of conducting foreign prioritized inspections starting in April,” the FDA said. “Throughout all these activities, the agency remains committed to the health and safety of its investigators and will provide the protection needed to safely inspect facilities and conduct investigations at the ports and in agency laboratories.”
The FDA said it also continue foreign supplier verifications on a remote basis.
The agency’s announcement comes as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service said fishery and seafood products recorded 9,857 pathogen violations between 2002 and 2019, accounting for 44.1 percent of all refused imports – by far the most of any category.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Food and Drug Administration
