Has anyone come across policies/procedures for awareness of insects/spiders for staff unpacking imported goods? Would it be reasonable to anticipate that there may be beasties present that could give nasty bites in textiles shipped from China for instance? Should textiles be fumigated or treated to kill insects/spiders?

Thanks in anticipation

Hi not sure if this helps directly but my opinion is that you should be fumigating the containers before you get them on site and there are a couple of ways of doing that...

I have had a couple of 'exotic' creatures hitching a ride inside materials..one casued a severe encephalitis case and the other was a near miss with a black widow..which we were called to sort at the port...

It may already be in process but as always your risk assessment should show the control measures in aplace and required...

It is rare that a GP would be aware of such bites and stings but most frontline services do have professionals experienced in tropical medicines, or access to those that do and those that work in and around the ports have plenty of experience of it.

Elimination or reduction of it as far as possible (through fumigation prior to arrival, if we follow the hierachy of control) is best...training is good but in my expeierience is more cost avoidance rather than true control.  It still needs to be there but isn't always as effective as people are under pressure to get the load out.

If your container or supplies are coming from a location with known risks then you need to put an effective control in place...

I would be very careful about committing to the fumigation approach. In the past I worked with Defra’s fumigation team so I have some knowledge (but I am not an expert by any means).

First you have to select your fumigant- this will have to be something that will kill the creatures that you are concerned about but minimise the risk to any human involved in the process. The fumigant will also need to comply with various pieces of environmental legislation.

You also have to decide how to contain the fumigant around the material to be fumigated typically plastic sheeting.

How long to expose material to the fumigant and how much fumigant to use. This depends of the size of the items to be fumigated and how easy the fumigant finds to permeate the object. It has to get to a lethal level right through the packaging etc. Then you have to decide how to vent the fumigant.

You will probably need to bring in specialist contractor to do this work.

As you can see the process is quite complicated and you will likely have to balance the cost and effort involved of this process against the risk posed by the occasional venomous beastie.