The National Agro-alimentary Health, Safety and Quality Service (Senasica) uploaded to its website the Zoosanitary Requirements Sheets (HRZ: Hojas de Requisitos Zoosanitarios), through which the sanitary conditions are established for the importation of safe, original and originating bovine meat. from two areas of Brazil.
Based on the risk analyzes carried out by Senasica's animal health experts, the published animal health requirements sheets establish the risk mitigation measures that plants authorized to export to Mexico must comply with, with the purpose of promoting the safe trade of meat products and protect the country's livestock production.
The first one refers to the state of Santa Catarina, whose sanitary status recognized by the World Organization for Animal Health (OMSA) is free of foot-and-mouth disease without vaccination – same recognition as Mexico-, so this entity will be able to export fresh, chilled or frozen bone-in meat.
The second covers imports from Brazilian states: Bahia, Federal District, Espiritu Santo, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Rondonia, São Paulo, Sergipe and Tocantins, recognized by OMSA with the status of free of foot-and-mouth disease with vaccination.
According to the experts from the General Directorate of Animal Health (DGSA), to eliminate any health risk related to foot-andmouth disease, the producers of these 14 entities will be able to export to Mexico only matured and boneless meat, the same requirement that was recently imposed on Argentina and for 17 years to import meat from Uruguay, which, since then, has entered our country, without any sanitary problem.
Brazil retains negligible risk status for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)
Regarding the suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) detected by the Brazilian health authority at the end of February, in a nine-year-old animal from the municipality of Marabá, Senasica indicated that on March 3 it received a communication from the Ministry of Agriculture of Brazil to inform that the OMSA reference laboratory located in Alberta, Canada, confirmed that it is an isolated case of atypical BSE type H.
According to the OMSA, the atypical form of BSE appears naturally and sporadically in old cattle, it is not transmissible and does not represent any risk for animals or humans, therefore, Brazil maintains the status of BSE as negligible risk, which is the same one that Mexico holds.
In order to authorize the entry of Brazilian beef into Mexico, Senasica also considered the transparency with which the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture handled the suspicion of BSE reported at the end of February, as well as the robustness shown by its Veterinary Services in detecting the case quickly and adopting the security measures indicated in a timely manner.
Safe import, to diversify meat supply sources
The importation of meat from Brazil is part of the measures taken to facilitate international food trade and thus diversify the sources of meat supply, thereby contributing to strengthening the Mexican government's policy against inflation and the high cost of basic basket products, in favor of the Mexican population.
The agency has also taken measures to guarantee the safety of products to be imported from Brazil, for which meat shipments must come from authorized plants, which have demonstrated strict product traceability programs and to minimize the risk of the presence of contaminants that could harm consumers health.
The authorization granted to Brazil is the product of work between Senasica and its Brazilian counterparts, which began more than 12 years ago, when the South American country requested the export of poultry, pork and beef to Mexico. Since then, the conversations began and the exchange of information began so that the experts from the DGSA and the General Directorate of Agro-alimentary, Aquaculture and Fisheries Safety (DGIAAP: Dirección General de Inocuidad Agroalimentaria, Acuícola y Pesquera) began to analyze the issue.
The requirements for importing meat from Brazil and all those established by Senasica derive from science-based criteria and are aligned with Mexican laws and international standards for the safe trade of agro-alimentary products, so the procedures are very similar to those applied by our main trading partners with respect to Brazilian meat, such as Canada and the United States.