Brazil has decided to temporarily suspend its beef exports to China after a case of “mad cow disease” was detected in the Amazon state of Pará. The breeding plant where the sick animal was found has been closed preventively, Brazilian health authorities reported on Wednesday.
Brazil’s Agriculture and Livestock Ministry said on Wednesday that the country’s beef exports to China would halt as of Thursday.
The State Association for Agricultural Defense of Pará (Adepa) said in a statement that a suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the scientific name of the disease, presented a “positive result”.
The case, according to the state agency, occurred in a small farm with 160 heads of cattle, which was “isolated” by the agency’s health prosecutor and after being “verified” it was decided to close it “preventively” .
“The symptoms indicate that it is an atypical form of the disease, which arises spontaneously in nature, without causing the risk of being spread in the flock and to humans,” stressed Adepa.
Samples from the animal were sent to a World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reference laboratory in Alberta, Canada, to determine whether it was an “atypical or classic” case.
In 2021, two cases were detected in a slaughterhouse in the state of Minas Gerais (southeast), and in a farm in Mato Grosso (west), in animals that had to be “discarded” due to their advanced age and would not have been slaughtered for food.
For this reason, exports to China have been suspended, as the Asian country, Brazil’s main trading partner, is the only buyer of Brazilian meat to have a health protocol which requires this temporary suspension of importation.
Two years earlier, in 2019, Brazil was also forced to suspend shipments to China after an “atypical” case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the state of Mato Grosso, classification of the disease for when it occurs spontaneously and sporadic
In 25 years of surveillance of the disease, Brazil has recorded only, not counting this Wednesday, five cases of “mad cow disease”, but all atypical and none classic, a variety, the latter, which could lead to the closure of all markets due to the risk it poses to human consumption. EFE extension
Source: Clarin
