“Bolivia Working to Achieve Foot-and-Mouth Disease-Free Certification Without Vaccination by 2025 to Expand Beef Export Markets”

La Paz, May 28, 2023 (ABI).- The Government is working to consolidate foot-and-mouth disease-free certification without vaccination until 2025 throughout the national territory, in order to access new beef export markets, the Minister of Rural Development and Land, Remmy Gonzáles, said this Sunday.

At the 90th Annual General Session of the World Assembly of delegates of the World Organization for Animal Health (OMSA) in Paris, France, Bolivia received the certification of foot-and-mouth disease-free without vaccination for the departments of Beni and Pando, in addition, for northern part of La Paz.

“This certification leads to the objective of the national government to consolidate Bolivia free of foot-and-mouth disease without vaccination until 2025, it is one more step and we work so that other departments consolidate the certificate,” he explained on Bolivia TV.

In 2007, the last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was registered in the department of Santa Cruz and until May 2023, 843 epidemiological weeks had passed without the occurrence of this disease, 16 years and three months in the country.

What is sought is to expand foreign markets.

“The certification gives us a worldwide health status and will allow us not only to offer to the Chinese market, but also to access other more demanding markets such as Europe, which have protocols to which we must adapt,” he explained.

Currently, Bolivia exports beef to the Chinese market, where the product is widely accepted and in great demand.

The Bolivian product is also in demand in Russia, while camelid meat is required in Turkey.

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