Modelo de fluxo de buscas para a identificação de perigos biológicos para análise de risco das importações de produtos lácteos pelo Brasil entre 2018 e 2022

Abstract

Nowadays, one of the biggest challenges the international commerce of animal products face is sanitary control. The latter aims to reduce or eliminate the risk of entrance and dissemination of pathogens. Moreover, taking into account the socio-economic relevance of the market in Brazil as well as health maintenance of livestock and human population, it is mandatory that the country works with excellence regarding sanitary surveillance in importing actions. Within this scenario and also due to the lack of standardization and incapacitation from different governments to deal with the frequent threats of pathogens dissemination, a method of risk analysis is a valuable tool to be used by the official veterinarian service on the control and prevention of illnesses all over the world. It is fundamental, however, to get to know the product which will be imported and to identify all of its pathogenic agents. There is then a great deal of difficulties to identify all of the existent ones since the research process is usually complex and long-lasting. In order to facilitate such processes and guarantee that the employed sources are updated and reliable, this research proposes a model based on flux structuring which culminates in a list of potential microbiological risks related to a specific product. This model can be applied by risk analysts in the elaboration of Import Risk Analysis (IRA) in products of animal origin. Beyond that, the present study presents the application of the model taking as an example the main dairy product imported to Brazil between the years of 2018 and 2022. Three hypothetical scenarios were submitted to the model flow, mozzarella cheese from Argentina, semi-hard cheese pasta from Uruguay and whey from any exporting country, which resulted in a list of pathogens for each situation. At the end of the process, three pathogens were chosen as real hazards through the execution of the Risk Identification step - the first step of IRA. Coxiella burnetii, Listeria monocytogenes and Mycobacterium bovis were confirmed as biohazards disseminated by the mozzarella and semi-hard cheese and the whey, imported to Brazil in a generic context coming from Argentina and Uruguay respectively. Therefore, such hazards will be able to be evaluated in the Risk Analysis - the second step of IRA. The present research could demonstrate the model’s availability following flux structuring, optimizing the selection of pathogenic agents to the elaboration of risk analysis in an agile, fast and complemented way which guarantees credibility of the data and updating of the sanitary status in each country.