RIYADH, 15 January — Saudi authorities have refused to allow the entry into the Kingdom of 30,000 live sheep from Turkey over fears they could carry the Rift Valley Fever disease. The shipment was ordered by a Saudi merchant to be sold during the Haj season next month, said an Agriculture Ministry official.
The businessman explained that he ordered the huge consignment following a false newspaper report which said that the ban on the import of animals had been lifted, according to the official.
The businessman has been making desperate efforts to get an exemption for this particular case because he will suffer “heavy financial losses” otherwise.
The Ministry of Agriculture turned down his request because the ban on the import of live cattle from Turkey is still operative, the official said.
He pointed out that before ordering the cattle the importer should have confirmed whether or not the newspaper reports were correct.
Saudi Arabia banned the import of live sheep from Turkey last year after the outbreak of the deadly disease in that country.
A ban on Sudanese cattle — except beef — was lifted last month. The Minister of Agriculture and Water Abdullah Muammar said that this was in line with a memorandum of veterinary health signed with the Sudanese minister of animal wealth in December last year. The agreement stipulates that animals imported from that country should be free from all infectious diseases.
An Agriculture Ministry source said the ministry was so meticulous in applying the meat ban that it denied permission for 3,800 tons of meat imported from Brazil and New Zealand because the shipments had passed through countries where the disease was present.
The ministry also had refused permission for several thousand tons of Indian meat at Jeddah port because India is included in the list of the countries from where meat import is banned.
The temporary Saudi ban on cattle and meat from the members of the European Union and most African countries are still in place.
Rift Valley Fever has claimed 124 lives in the Kingdom since it broke out on the Arabian Peninsula in September 2000. In neighboring Yemen, 109 people died of the disease. Thousands of cattle also perished in both countries.
