Brazil declared free from foot-and-mouth disease with vaccination

After over 50 years working on the eradication and prevention of foot-and-mouth disease in its livestock, Brazil receives from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) today a certificate declaring the country free from the illness with vaccination. The country’s prevention and control efforts, jointly spearheaded by federal and state governments and the private enterprise, have included the vaccination of animals, border surveillance, and the creation of a countrywide laboratory network.

Most Brazilian states had already been declared free from foot-and-mouth disease with vaccination. With the new sanitary status, the trade of meat and living animals will be made easier both in the country and overseas. “This shows that Brazil, with one of the world’s largest amounts of bovine cattle, has been concerned with sanitary issues. This conveys more credibility and security to buyers,” said Bruno Lucchi, technical superintendent at the Agriculture and Livestock Confederation of Brazil (CNA).

The certificate can also bring value to other sectors, like pig farming, Lucchi argued. “We don’t face the same risk [as other countries do where the virus causing foot-and-mouth disease circulates], and this adds great value to exports. Markets are willing to pay more. We’re benefited both directly and indirectly,” he said.

Long history

OIE Director-General Monique Eloit handed the sanitary certificate to Brazilian Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Supply Blairo Maggi today (24) at the organization headquarters in Paris, during its seventh plenary session. OIE’s Scientific Commission approved the document in 2017, but it was only this Thursday that the organization’s 181 member countries made the decision official.

This Sunday (20), Maggi spoke at the opening ceremony of the 86th OIE General Session, where he said that the recognition of Brazil as free from foot-and-mouth disease with vaccination comes as “the victory of a long and arduous history of dedication on the part of cattle farmers and the veterinary sector.” The country first mounted organized efforts to fight the illness in the 60s.

Thanks to the joint efforts, the last case of the disease in Brazil was reported in 2006. In 2007, Santa Catarina state, in south Brazil, was acknowledged by the OIE as free from foot-and-mouth disease without vaccination. This is the next status to be sought by Brazil: to be able to forgo vaccination by 2023, so that, by 2026, the country may be declared free from the disease without vaccination.