Brazil tightens border against Bolivia foot-and-mouth
Source: Reuters
(Adds new quotes, rewrites lead paragraph, updates) By Reese Ewing and Carlos Quiroga SAO PAULO/LA PAZ, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Brazil will begin tightening its border with Bolivia, where foot-and-mouth broke out last week, to try to keep the disease from throwing its world-leading beef export sector back into chaos, the agriculture ministry said on Wednesday. On Monday, Brazil said it suspended beef and dairy products imports after the disease cropped up in Bolivia's eastern province of Santa Cruz on Jan. 26. Argentina's food and animal health service Senasa said on Tuesday it had bolstered border checks with Bolivia. The disease is tough to contain as wild deer or other cloven-hoofed animals can carry it across the 3,166 km (2,000 mile) border between Bolivia and Brazil's prime cattle region. Federal and state governments adjacent to Bolivia will beef up the check points on the border with health agents and police. "The outbreak in Bolivia poses a serious threat to Brazil's beef industry," said Antonio Ernesto de Salvo, president of Brazil's National Confederation of Agriculture. "We need to police the dry borders with Bolivia and focus on eradicating foot-and-mouth there." Over 50 countries that import beef from Brazil, the world's largest exporter, banned shipments after the highly contagious disease broke out in October 2005 in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso do Sul, which borders Bolivia, and Parana. Almost a year and a half later, some of these countries are just now reopening to shipments of Brazilian beef. Nearly all of Brazil's main cattle states are under a vaccination program to fend off the disease. It is not clear how the disease slipped into Brazil in 2005. Industry leaders said government spending on animal health was cut and some of the vaccines may have been improperly stored or administered. But most in the industry say the foot-and-mouth likely came from Bolivia or Paraguay. Mato Grosso, a major cattle state, begins a statewide vaccination against the disease on Thursday as a preventive measure, the ministry said. Brazil is even sending a million vaccine doses to Bolivia, as part of a policy that was adopted last year. "If the Bolivian government desires, we can send Brazilian technicians to support the control and eradication of the outbreaks," said Guilherme Marques from the animal safety department at the ministry. South America's Mercosur customs treaty members recently agreed to fund a joint foot-and-mouth initiative with a bankroll of $16.3 million. The Mercosur members include Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and its latest member Venezuela, as well as associate members Chile and Bolivia. Brazil is expected to be the world leader in beef exports in 2007, both in terms of revenues as well as volume, the beef exporters association Abiec said recently. BOLIVIA Bolivia's cattle industry is relatively small, but ranchers say they were disappointed the country would not now be able to achieve foot-and-mouth free status. They had gone two years without a case of the virus prior to this outbreak. "We had been hopeful. We had the paperwork to present to be declared a country free of foot-and-mouth in May. Our dream's been ruined," Raul Anez, head of the Santa Cruz Ranchers' Federation, said in the Bolivian daily La Razon. Bolivia does not export much beef to Brazil or Argentina, though it does export meat and dairy produce to countries belonging to the Andean Community of Nations trade group.
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