Within the framework of commercial renegotiations to export poultry products, the National Agrifood Health and Quality Service (Senasa) reached a new sanitary agreement with its Uruguayan counterpart that allows it to reopen the trade in fresh poultry products to send to the neighboring country.
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After the self-suspension of exports due to the first detection of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in commercial birds, Senasa's Directorate of Foreign Animal Trade (DCEA) began talks with health services from other countries to adapt the merchandise export certifications avian.
With the aim of restoring markets, one of the novelties that Senasa reported to its health peers during the work for the avian influenza emergency was the implementation of the zoning strategy. It establishes the delimitation of the outbreak area, called the Sanitary Control Zone (ZCS).
In addition, it is worth mentioning that for the export of poultry meat and fresh eggs, all exporting countries must respect and demonstrate effective compliance with the international recommendations of the World Organization for Animal Health (WHO) regarding HPAI for the exchange of meat and poultry products. , the same as for live birds.
By virtue of the contingency tasks carried out by Senasa in HPAI outbreaks in commercial farms, Argentina once again entered into talks to reestablish markets with its commercial partners.
In this sense, the actions carried out in the aforementioned Sanitary Control Zone were very important. It establishes the space where an outbreak has been detected and is constituted as a separate area from the territory where the disease has not been detected.
The ZCS is determined by a radius of 10 km around the detection of the outbreak and implies a sanitary vacuum; the correct disposal of waste; and cleaning tasks, disinfection in the affected farms.
In this way, surveillance actions were carried out in the properties located in the ZCS, which allow the rapid detection of the disease - in case of dispersion.
Also, the movements of birds and poultry products to and from the Control Zone were restricted, in order to guarantee purchasing countries that products from this delimited area will not be considered for that purpose.
Another very important task is the implementation of a dashboard that is updated daily and contains all the epidemiological information and the Sanitary Control Zones in progress.
It is important to highlight that the actions implemented were recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Uruguay, where its authorities have stated that the actions arranged by Senasa in the ZCS give the necessary guarantees to receive fresh poultry products from establishments located outside of the ZCS.
In this way, Senasa's zoning system is an important step for the Agency to advance in the process of sanitary negotiations that will admit the recovery of export destinations. ■