Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of beef
Brazilian health officials said this week that a suspected case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal illness that destroys brain tissue, probably wasn’t caused by eating beef of an animal infected with the mad cow sickness.
“The occurrence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob from beef consumption is highly unlikely” Jose Saraiva, health secretary for the city of Campinas, which was notified of the case on Nov. 12, told reporters. “This possibility has almost been ruled out.”
Health officials in Campinas, in Sao Paulo state, said they were investigating a possible case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which would be the first ever in Brazil. The variant of the incurable human illness has been linked to eating meat from animals infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as BSE or mad cow.
Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter. JBS SA, the world’s largest meat-processing company, said Brazil has never had a case of mad cow.
“Brazilian beef is healthy,” the Sao Paulo-based company said in a statement. “It’s important to remember this is an initial diagnosis and cannot be confirmed.”
Campinas’s health department will have a definitive diagnosis in 15 days, Saraiva said.
At least 139 people worldwide have died from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, according to the World Health Organization’s website. Most of the deaths were in the U.K. (more…)
Haiti
Brazil is set to donate 2 million dollars to help Haiti fight an outbreak of cholera and assist people suffering from the disease, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
The money is to go toward the purchase of medication and hospital equipment to fight the outbreak, which was confirmed last week and has already caused 259 deaths and more than 3,000 infections, according to Haitian authorities.
Further, two Brazilian epidemiologists are set to travel to Haiti this week to help Haitian authorities draw up a strategy to hinder the cholera spread.
Brazil was assessing a possible release of additional money as an “extraordinary loan” to finance the work of the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) in Haiti, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued in Brasilia.
