The incidence of the disease was recorded in Pará. According to the Agriculture Ministry, the animal was culled and the carcass incinerated. The suspicion is that the case is atypical, i.e. without risk of transmission to humans. The federal government suspended the export of beef to China as of this Thursday (23/02), after the confirmation of a case of mad cow disease in Para.
“Following the official sanitary protocol, exports to China will be temporarily suspended from this Thursday,” read the statement released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.
The measure is standard in these cases, being provided for in a health agreement with the Asian country.
The case was reported to the World Organization for Animal Health (WHOA) and samples were sent to the institution’s reference laboratory in Alberta, Canada, to determine if the event is a classic case, in which there is transmission from one animal to another. or atypical, in which the disease develops spontaneously in nature, usually in older animals.
The State Agency for Agricultural Defense of Pará (Adepará) did not specify the municipality where the case was registered, stating only that it occurred in a small town in southeast Pará, on a property with 160 heads of livestock, which has been isolated, inspected and previously interdicted.
The infected animal was slaughtered and its carcass incinerated, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. It was raised on pasture, with no food.
In a statement, Adepará highlighted that it works with the hypothesis of an atypical case, with no risk of spreading to the herd and to humans. Death in the pasture increases the chances that the alleged mad cow disease originated atypically, spontaneously in nature, rather than being transmitted through ingestion of contaminated animal feed. This, in theory, reduces the chances of imposing trade barriers.
“All measures are taken immediately at each stage of the investigation and the matter is treated with total transparency to guarantee Brazilian and global consumers the recognized quality of our meat,” said the Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro.
Brazil is one of the largest beef exporters in the world and achieves more than half of its sales in this segment in the Chinese market. In total, the country exported $13.09 billion worth of beef in 2022, which represents a 42 percent increase over the previous year.
No communicable cases
The last cases of mad cow disease recorded in Brazil occurred in September 2021, in Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso. At the time, the cases were atypical, but China suspended the purchase of Brazilian beef for three months, until December of that year.
To date, Brazil has not recorded any classic cases of mad cow disease, caused by the consumption of contaminated meat and pieces of bone.
Caused by a prion, a protein molecule with no genetic code, mad cow disease is a degenerative disease also called bovine spongiform encephalitis. The modified proteins consume the animal’s brain, making it comparable to a sponge.
In addition to oxen and cows, the disease affects buffaloes, sheep and goats. Ingestion of prion-contaminated meat and animal by-products causes transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in humans.
Mad cow disease was first identified in 1980. At the height of the UK outbreak in 1992, over 37,000 cases were confirmed. The disease can be transmitted to humans by eating contaminated meat and being incubated for decades. When it strikes, the degenerative disease is incurable and leads to death.
le/lf (Lusa, ABR)
Source: Terra
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