South Africa keeps Brazilian poultry imports flowing under certification as Brazil confirms a third Newcastle disease outbreak

South Africa has declined to ban Brazilian poultry after Newcastle disease was found in Santa Catarina, keeping the trade open on veterinary certification that already bars product from infected premises and a 10 km radius around them - a reminder that market access now turns on documentation, not on headlines.

The national Department of Agriculture said in a statement on 28 October 2026 that it had assessed Brazil's notification of 20 October and would not impose a countrywide restriction on poultry and poultry products from Brazil. Veterinary health certificates agreed between the two countries allow trade in fresh poultry meat, hatching eggs and day-old chicks to continue despite the outbreak, subject to the usual import requirements. Brazil announced a third outbreak at a poultry farm in Nova Erechim on 27 October.

South Africa imports roughly a fifth of the poultry it consumes, and Brazil supplies at least 70 percent of those imports, so a countrywide suspension would have hit the domestic market directly. Dr Botlhe Modisane, chief director for animal production and health, said the existing protocol already excludes the disease: Brazil may not export from facilities infected with Newcastle disease and must show that no cases have been reported within a radius of more than 10 kilometres of those facilities.

• Scope of the restriction: premises-level, not country-level or state-level. Product from unaffected farms in Santa Catarina remains eligible under certification.
• What South Africa accepted: the Brazilian notification of 20 October 2026 and the certificate set already in force for fresh poultry meat, hatching eggs and day-old chicks.
• Contrast with other buyers: Mexico suspended imports from the whole of Brazil, China limited its suspension to the 14 Santa Catarina plants authorised to ship to China, and Saudi Arabia suspended poultry from Santa Catarina.
• Third outbreak: confirmed at a poultry farm in Nova Erechim on 27 October 2026, in addition to the original turkey farm case and a second premises.
• Why it matters for suppliers: buyers that work on zoning and certification keep receiving product; buyers that default to national bans remove themselves from the market for weeks.

For exporters, the practical lesson is that a single outbreak no longer implies a closed market. What decides clearance is whether the slaughterhouse, the farm of origin and the surrounding radius are clean on the certificate, whether the certificate wording matches the importing country's protocol, and whether the port of entry and route declared on the file match the documents. Consignments that are assembled from several farms need farm-level traceability to survive that test.

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Source: Reuters, published by Business Day, 28 October 2026; statement by South Africa's national Department of Agriculture, 28 October 2026; SABC News, 29 October 2026, quoting Dr Botlhe Modisane, chief director for animal production and health.