MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, NZ, BSE-free

Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina were officially recognized by the World Animal Heath Organization, OIE, as the only four countries in the World free of Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis, BSA, more commonly known as “mad cow”.

The BSE-free status was approved by the 168 countries present at the 74th meeting of the annual OIE assembly in Paris and will be valid until May 2008 when the organization will change the assessment criteria, admitting countries with an insignificant risk.

The recommendation to approve the four countries BSE free condition was circulated in March to all OIE member countries, with 60 days to comment. There were no objections. Four other countries figure in "provisionally free" short list: Chile, Iceland, Paraguay and Singapore.

Uruguay's Director General of the Livestock Services at the Ministry of Agriculture, Francisco Muzio will be officially receiving the BSE-free diploma Thursday.

Although a great achievement for Uruguay's beef industry "it's also a challenge for the future, to get things right and have everybody collaborating to ensure we retain that status", added Mr. Muzio.

"As a net exporter of beef and other meats the new status is very helpful for Uruguay, particularly in Asian markets, because countries that are not recognised as BSE free must exclude certain animal tissues from all manufacturing" emphasized the Uruguayan delegate.

Dante Geymonat a former Uruguayan animal health expert and currently a FAO advisor who specializes in transmissible spongiform encephalitis said the recognition will not have immediate impacts, but "it's essential to keep import controls on all risk materials plus ensuring the ban on feeding ruminants with meat meal is effectively enforced by officials and self enforced by farmers".

Regarding foot and mouth disease the OIE office ratified Uruguay as free of FAM with vaccine together with Taiwán, China and Paraguay. However, the status of FAM without vaccine was cancelled for the majority of Brazilian states and for Argentina with the exception of South of parallel 42 (Patagonia).

Mr. Geymonat also confirmed that OIE officials will be auditing Panaftosa the South American regional FAM combat office in Brazil to help improve its performance.