Brussels, 02/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - During the reading of the geographic risk assessment of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in thirteen third countries, carried out by the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), it was noted that only Brazil and Singapore (considered as countries where BSE is highly unlikely) will not be compelled to remove and destroy all specified risk materials (SRMs) if they wish to export meat to the EU.
All candidate countries whose situation was examined (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) will have to take these precautionary measures. The SSC states: "all Eastern Central and Southern European countries examined have imported significant amounts of live cattle and meat-and-bone-meal from EU countries where the presence of BSE has since been confirmed. The appropriate risk management measures such as MBM feed-ban for ruminants were in most cases not put in place until recently. Therefore it is regarded likely that their cattle herds were exposed to potentially BSE contaminated feed and subsequently infected".
The SSC must issue opinions to allow the implementation, from 1 April 2001 on (with some flexibility granted until the 15th of this month), of the external chapter of the Community decision dated 30 June 2000 on withdrawal of SRM. We recall that only countries in Category I where BSE risk is "highly unlikely" may benefit from such exemptions. In order to draw up a final list of these third countries, the Standing Veterinary Committee (SVC) must give its opinion on a draft decision to be submitted to it by the European Commission. The SVC has already approved, on 21 March, derogation in favour of ten third countries (see EUROPE of 23 March, p.9). During this assessment, the SVC placed thirteen countries in the following categories: Category I - Brazil, Singapore; Category II (unlikely, but a BSE risk cannot be excluded) - India, Pakistan, Colombia and Mauritania; Category III (likely to present a BSE risk, even if not confirmed, or presenting a low level of confirmed BSE risk): Albania, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Other third countries must still pass a BSE risk assessment (Bulgaria, Israel, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Salvador, Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Romania, Slovenia, Thailand and Zimbabwe), for which results will be known after the SSC meeting on 11 May. Some twenty countries have not yet submitted files but are authorised to export meat or meat products to Community countries on condition that they have extracted all SRMs. Three of these countries are applying for EU membership (Turkey, Malta and Latvia).