News

Brazil: The magnitude of the impacts of mad cow will be determined by the duration of the embargo, uncertain and depends on the Chinese

Frozen Bone-In Beef
Meat
Brazil
China
Published Feb 24, 2023

Tridge summary

With the confirmation by the Agricultural Defense Agency of Pará (Adepará) of a case of mad cow disease on a property in Marabá, the decision of the Ministry of Agriculture on Wednesday (Feb/22) was to suspend beef exports to China from 23/Feb. A bilateral agreement signed between Brazil and China in 2015 determines the need for a “self-embargo” in case of occurrence of this nature. The country also notified the case to the International Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Original content

It is important to remember that Brazil has already had occurrences of atypical mad cow on other occasions, the last two in 2019 and 2021. Atypical mad cow is a brain degenerative process that occurs spontaneously in old animals, which is much less worrying than the classic type, which Brazil never had and which is related to the ingestion of contaminated meat and bone meal. Consumption of meat and animal derivatives contaminated in the classic way can lead to the development of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Brazil is awaiting the result of the laboratory test in Canada, which will indicate whether the occurrence is atypical or classic. Due to the characteristics of the case, in which the identified animal fed on grass and was nine years old, it is believed to be atypical. If so, the country will not lose its insignificant risk status. In 2019 there were a few days of blockade, but in 2021 it was more than three months, with serious damage mainly to the feedlots that had cattle ...
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