Brazil immediately stops exporting beef to China after discovering a case of mad cow disease. This was confirmed on Wednesday by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture.
Exports were halted as part of a trade protocol between the two countries. Brazil is the largest beef exporter in the world. China, the main destination of Brazilian beef, accounted for nearly 60 percent of the country’s exports last month.
Mad cow disease was discovered in a nine-year-old cow in Maraba, Para State. The animal, which received only grass, was culled and the carcass was burned on the farm.
Samples from the infected animal have been sent to a laboratory in Alberta, Canada, to determine if it is an atypical case. The atypical variant differs from the classical BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), which is linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
An atypical case generally means that the animal contracted the disease spontaneously and not through contaminated food. The last case of mad cow disease in Brazil occurred in 2021, followed by a three-month export ban.
Watch our news videos in the playlist below:
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and don’t miss a thing of the stars.