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INDIA

Nestlé’s Maggi noodles return to Indian shelves

Nestlé's hugely popular Maggi noodles returned on Monday to shelves in India five months after the government banned them over lead levels, in one of the biggest crises to hit the Swiss food giant.

Nestlé's Maggi noodles return to Indian shelves
Photo: AFP

India's food safety watchdog banned the noodles nationwide in June after test results showed packets exceeded legal limits of lead, while criticizing Nestlé for failing to list flavour enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG) on labels.
   
But the Bombay High Court, the highest court in the western city now known as Mumbai, overturned the ruling two months later, calling it “arbitrary” and ordered fresh tests.
   
Vevey-based Nestlé said last month those tests had found that Maggi noodles were safe to eat.

It has restarted production at three of its five India plants.
   
Nestlé lost more than 75 million francs ($74.7 million) over the ban, which forced it to destroy more than 37,000 tonnes of the noodles, India's leading brand.
   
“What we have been through has been like a life crisis for a human being,” Nestle India Managing Director Suresh Narayanan told reporters on Monday.
   
“It will need investments to nurture back the brand into the health that it was,” he said of Maggi, which previously accounted for about 30 percent of the company's Indian sales.
   
Maggi's return comes as Indians prepare to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali, a time when food shopping is at its peak.
   
Fans of the brand, which had 80 percent of India's instant noodle market before the crisis, reacted with delight on Twitter.
   
Sony Das posted: “What better way to celebrate this Diwali . . . #WelcomeBackMAGGI wid Maggi our lost appetites are also back.. Luv U Maggi”.
   
The noodles will initially return in 100 cities compared with more than 400 previously and in just one flavour, Masala.
   
Nestlé's Narayanan on Monday questioned the accuracy of the initial laboratory tests, saying India's regime for heavy metal testing in food was “unreliable” and called for an overhaul.
   
He left open the question of whether Nestlé would take legal action against the food safety regulator, saying the company had simply been “focused” on getting the product back on shelves.
   
Nestlé has always maintained the product was safe to eat, and has continued to sell it in other countries.
   
Nestlé India's stock was up 0.2 percent on the Bombay Stock Exchange in afternoon trade on Monday.
 

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INDIA

Travel: Spain imposes mandatory quarantine on arrivals from India over virus strain fears

Spain will make all travellers arriving from India undergo a 10-day quarantine to prevent the potential spread of the Asian country’s coronavirus variant within the Spanish territory.

Travel: Spain imposes mandatory quarantine on arrivals from India over virus strain fears
Photo: JACK GUEZ/AFP

Spanish government spokesperson María Jesús Montero made the announcement on Tuesday, explaining that as there are no direct flights between Spain and India, it isn’t possible for Spain to adopt measures such as banning arrivals outright as other European countries have done.

The quarantine requirement for travellers arriving to Spain from India starts on May 1st 2021.

India joins a number of South American and African nations that are already on Spain’s quarantine list to stem the spread of the Brazilian and South African variants. 

According to the Spanish government’s website, those “coming from the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of South Africa, Republic of Botswana, Union of Comoros, Republic of Ghana, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Mozambique, United Republic of Tanzania, Republic of Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe, Republic of Peru and Republic of Colombia, must remain in quarantine for 10 days after their arrival in Spain, or for the duration of their stay if it is shorter than that. This period may end earlier, if on the seventh day the person is tested for acute infection with negative results.”

India is currently battling a record-breaking rise in Covid-19 infections that has overwhelmed hospitals and led to severe bed and oxygen shortages.

A key question is whether a new variant with potentially worrying mutations – B.1.617 – is behind what is currently the world’s fastest-growing outbreak, setting four records in a row for the highest daily coronavirus infections by one country, the latest on Sunday with 349,691 new cases.

The country has also been recording around 3,000 deaths per day from Covid-19. 

Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands have all imposed restrictions or travel bans on arrivals from India in recent days.

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“No cases of the Indian variant have been detected to date to my knowledge,” Spain’s Emergencies Coordinator Chief Fernando Simón told journalists on Monday. 

“The intel does not indicate that we have to worry about it,” he added, given that the UK variant now makes up 94 percent of all infections in Spain. 

“We cannot rule out that a case (of the Indian variant) may be detected”, Simón admitted, but “so far it is not a variant of concern, it is a variant of interest”.

Patients breath with the help of oxygen masks inside a banquet hall temporarily converted into a Covid-19 coronavirus ward in New Delhi on April 27th, 2021. (Photo by Money SHARMA / AFP)

That is not a view shared by Amós José García Rojas , president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinations (AEV), who argues “we have to worry a lot” about the “chaos” that this new variant is leaving in the Asian country and why it could affect the spread of this strain of the virus.

“This new variant is fundamentally worrying because of what it is causing in India,” Rojas told medical publication Redacción Médica. 

“It shows that as there are territories where people are largely not vaccinated, there’s many people who are susceptible to the virus and it creates a breeding ground for the development of new variants”.

“We cannot vaccinate comprehensively in some countries and forget about other countries at the mercy of God.

“We have to worry about everyone because there is a risk that situations like the one seen in India will happen again. 

So far, the B.1.617 variant has been categorised by the World Health Organisation as a “variant of interest”.

Other variants detected in Brazil, South Africa and the UK have been categorised as “of concern”, because they are more transmissible, virulent or might reduce antibody efficacy.

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