Overview
- Senasa, which confirmed the country's first classic scrapie cases on Saturday, reported three positives in sheep in Santa Fe and Entre Ríos confirmed by a Spanish reference lab using Western Blot after ELISA screening.
- The affected breeders had imported sheep from Paraguay in 2021–2022 under official certificates, and the farms are now under movement bans and tighter surveillance after notices to the World Organisation for Animal Health and Paraguay's SENACSA.
- Senasa is rewriting export certificates after internal orders acknowledged the loss of scrapie-free status and signaled cuts to certificate issuance, creating near-term uncertainty for ovine goods and multiespecies paperwork.
- Officials said scrapie does not infect people or cattle, so bovine meat and milk remain outside the risk, and ovine meat can ship if plants remove specified risk tissues under international standards.
- Exporters expect beef sales to key markets to continue, though items like meat-and-bone meal to China and some dairy to Algeria may need new terms, while the episode draws scrutiny to post-entry quarantine practices.