Criteria applied by WOAH for assessing the safety of commodities

Article 2.2.1.

General provisions

For the purposes of this chapter the word ’safety’ is applied only to animal and human health considerations for listed diseases.

In many disease-specific chapters, the second article lists commodities that can be traded from a country or zone regardless of its status with respect to the specific listed disease. The criteria for their inclusion in the list of safe commodities are based on the absence of the pathogenic agent in the traded commodity, either due to its absence in the tissues from which the commodity is derived or to its inactivation by the processing or treatment that the animal products have undergone.

The assessment of the safety of the commodities using the criteria relating to processing or treatment can only be undertaken when processing or treatments are well defined. It may not be necessary to take into account the entire process or treatment, so long as the steps critical for the inactivation of the pathogenic agent of concern are considered.

For the criteria in Article 2.2.2. to be applied, it is expected that processing or treatment (i) uses standardised protocols, which include the steps considered critical in the inactivation of the pathogenic agent of concern; (ii) is conducted in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practices; and (iii) that any other steps in the treatment, processing and subsequent handling of the animal product do not jeopardise its safety.

Article 2.2.2.

Criteria

For an animal product to be considered a safe commodity for international trade as described in the User's guide and Article 2.2.1., it should comply with the following criteria:

1. There is strong evidence that the pathogenic agent is not present in the tissues from which the animal product is derived in an amount able to cause infection in a human or animal by a natural exposure route. This evidence is based on the known distribution of the pathogenic agent in an infected animal, whether or not it shows clinical signs of disease.

OR

2. If the pathogenic agent may be present in, or may contaminate, the tissues from which the animal product is derived, the standard processing or treatment applied to produce the commodity to be traded, while not being specifically directed at this pathogenic agent, inactivates it to the extent that possible infection of a human or animal is prevented through its action, which is:

   1. physical (e.g. temperature, drying, irradiation);
      

   OR
   

   2. chemical (e.g. iodine, pH, salt, smoke);
      

   OR
   

   3. biological (e.g. fermentation);
      

   OR
   

   4. a combination of a) to c) above.

nb: first adopted in 2017; most recent update adopted in 2018.