On June 28, the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Hanshou County, Changde, Hunan Province issued a circular on investigating and punishing the use of Fushou snails to sell snail meat by two enterprises in accordance with the law:
On June 28, the surging news reported that after the two enterprises of Hanshou County Xiangyuan Special Aquatic Products Co., Ltd. and Hongtai Food Factory used Fushou snails to pretend to be snail meat sales, Hanshou County attached great importance to it and acted quickly, and immediately set up a joint law enforcement team led by the County Market Supervision Bureau and composed of county public security, environmental protection and other departments rushed to the scene. Follow-up handling in accordance with laws and regulations will be promptly reported to the public.
Hanshou County will consciously accept the supervision of public opinion, learn lessons, draw inferences from one case, and immediately carry out a special action related to the illegal sales of Fushou snails in the county, comprehensively investigate hidden dangers, fill loopholes, severely crack down on violations of laws and regulations, further standardize the production and operation behavior of practitioners, and effectively ensure the food safety of the people.
Previously reported
At a processing plant in Huanglushan Village, Yanwanghu Township, Hanshou County, Hunan Province, a fishy smell fills the room with color steel tiles, and several female workers sit around a table that quickly sifts through piles of snail meat, some with pink soft debris. Workers shovel the sifted snail meat into plastic baskets, weigh it, and then send it to the cold storage, waiting for the manufacturer's truck to pull away the whole box.
Near the Heping Bridge in Hanshou County, the frozen meat of Fushou snails displayed by "snail" dealers.
"Fushou snails, how many or how many you want. Ten tons, twenty tons, whatever you want. The person in charge of the processing plant said that in recent years, the number of snails has decreased, and there are more and more snails in wild waters, and the shelled snails are easy to see.
Some of the snail meat skewers sold in a spicy hot shop on Mercury Street in Changde City can be identified as suspected to be Fushou snails.
In early June, the surging news went to Hunan and other places to investigate and found that the price of Fushou snails caught from the wild is extremely low, and the price difference between snails and ring snails is several times.
The hazards of snails
Fushou snail is an alien species, with strong reproductive ability and destructive power to the ecological environment. According to statistics, there are 3,000 fewer parasites and more than 6,000 parasites in a snail. If it is not fully cooked during cooking, the parasites will easily enter the human body after eating, which may damage nerve tissue, and in severe cases, it will lead to dementia and even death.
On June 2, Zhang Yu, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that Fushou snail is a hard-shell mollusk of the family Bottlelaceae of the order Megastropodidae, and is an intermediate host for parasites such as Angiostrongylus cantonensis. May to August is the peak breeding season, and the fertility is very strong, and it can spread rapidly. Consumption of unprocessed and cooked snails may be infected with Angiostrongylus cantonensis parasitic disease. The disease mainly invades the central nervous system of the human body, and manifests as meningeal and encephalitis, meningitis and myelitis, which can be fatal or disabling in severe cases.
Fushou snail. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
"There have been large-scale outbreaks in many places on the mainland." Xu Xiaowei, chief physician of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said that from the perspective of geographical distribution, the mainland Guangzhou strongyloidiasis is mainly in the southeast coastal areas, and known clear cases have been reported in Zhejiang, Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Yunnan and Taiwan, in addition, Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang have also been reported in four provinces and cities in the north.
"Recently, there have not been too many cases of Angiostrongylus cantonensis infection in clinical practice." Xu Xiaowei reminded the majority of netizens that Fushou snail is the intermediate host of Angiostrongylus cantonensis, and skin contact with Fushou snail will not be infected. However, if you see snails-like creatures outdoors, don't eat them easily, if you have an "explosive" headache, neck stiffness, numbness, itching or a feeling of worms crawling under the skin, visual impairment, vomiting and fever symptoms after ingestion, there is a possibility of infection with Angiostrongyloides cantonensis, and everyone is reminded to seek medical attention as soon as possible.
"Although the snail itself is not poisonous, it is not recommended to eat it due to the problem of parasites. In addition, there are also cases where Fushou snails are confused with snails and eaten by mistake, so it is recommended that edible snails should also be purchased through regular channels and eaten after being fully cooked. Zhang Yu also reminded that when you see similar creatures outdoors, try not to touch and play with them.
Source: Youth Beijing, Red Network Changde Station, The Paper, People's Daily Health Client