South Africa bans some meat products from Brazil
Since March, the South African Department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries suspended meat imports from three Brazilian production facilities under the suspicion that some meat products imported in the past 12 months could be linked the listeriosis outbreak that hit the African country.
The announcement came after a new episode has begun in the Weak Flesh scandal in Brazil, which started a year ago and is targeting the Brazilian meat industry. Bomikazi Molapo, the department's spokesperson, confirmed that South Africa suspended imports of meat from these facilities on March 16 when it received an official report from the Brazilian authorities, informs Mail&Guardian newspaper.
A number of firms, including BRF, one of the largest poultry exporters in the world, have been implicated in the scandal. Two of the recently suspended facilities belong to BRF.
At this time, South Africa's authorities are investigating if the listeriosis outbreak has caused by the imported mechanically deboned meat (MDM), a key ingredient for the processed meat products like viennas and polony.
In 2017, South Africa has imported a volume of 202,000 tons of MDM from countries in the European Union, the United States, Thailand and Brazil. A large portion of that volume came from Brazil.
In total, South Africa has put under the suspension a number of 21 establishments that were implicated in the wider Brazilian meat investigation. The latest phase of the Operation Weak Flesh has led to the arrest of numerous officials as well as industry players — including that of BRF’s former chief executive.
Still, the tests effectuated on the MDM imported by South Africa have not revealed any evidence that the ST6 string of the virus has been found on these products. Also, the Brazilian embassy in Pretoria claims that the irregularities questioned in the Weak Flesh scandal could be associated with possible cases of Salmonella and are not linked to cases of listeriosis.
In a recent press statement, the embassy noted that Brazilian companies export processed meat to many other countries and no outbreak of the disease could be linked to Brazilian products anywhere else in the world.
“Processed meat is used as a raw material for different products available for consumption and it is therefore subject to industrial processes that should eliminate any risk of contamination by Listeria,” it said.
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