São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC), an organization that supports business between Brazil and the Arab countries, assessed Brazil’s response to the confirmed cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI A H5N1) in the country in recent weeks as adequate. Information is from a release by the institution’s press office.
According to the secretary-general of the entity, Tamer Mansour (pictured above), the stance of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and poultry-exporting companies has been “clear,” “transparent,” and “organized,” which is why the disease did not affect production plants.
“No Arab country has requested a formal or official consultation on the event. This is thanks to Brazil being very transparent in disclosing information. Thus, the Arab countries’ position is to monitor the situation,” stated the director, who is also observing the cases at the request of the Arab countries, which buy 32% of Brazilian poultry exports.
Until last Monday (5), the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture had confirmed 24 cases of the disease in Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, and São Paulo, all in wild birds, outside the productive chain. The Ministry continues to monitor the farms within a 10 km radius of the outbreaks. It also created an extraordinary credit line of BRL 200 million (about USD 40.32 million at the current rate) for monitoring the disease, which has not affected exports so far.
In the case of the Arab nations, the ABCC already routinely checks the health certificates of cargo bound for Arab League countries. According to the entity, the process is normally occurring, indicating shipments are being received in Arab ports, which from January to May received 506,200 tonnes of poultry from Brazil, a volume close to the same period of 2022.
Mansour has taken advantage of his dialogues with Arab governments to emphasize that Brazil’s poultry derivatives productive chain is highly verticalized and already followed rigorous sanitary procedures before the cases. With the confirmation of bird flu cases, these procedures were reinforced, with a total ban on visits to the breeding facilities.
The organization sent a note to Arab embassies in Brazil stressing the confirmation of HPAI A H5N1 cases does not alter the country’s status as a disease-free area, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
