Fears over the safety of the breast implants made by now defunct French company PIP spread around the world in December on reports they were made with industrial rather than medical grade silicone and had abnormally high rupture rates.

Brazilian health watchdog Anvisa said Rousseff, Brazil's first woman president, took the decision on Wednesday, reversing an earlier government position.

"The understanding is that a ruptured implant requires repair surgery that can be done by the national health system, and, if needed, the implant will be replaced," said the head of Anvisa, Dirceu Barbano.

Brazil's health system will monitor all women with the implants to catch any signs of rupture, Anvisa said on its website.

More than 25 000 of the French-made implants were used in Brazil - a country that is obsessed with appearance and has a huge cosmetic surgery industry.

As many as 300 000 women worldwide may have received the implants.

The French government advised all users there in December to have the implants removed because of the danger they could rupture and cause inflammation and irritation. There was no evidence of increased cancer risk, it said.

France has offered to remove the implants from an estimated 30 000 wearers there free of charge, while Britain, where a similar number of women are affected, advised them to contact surgeons when they had a specific concern.

Brazil's health watchdog Anvisa said it collected samples of the implants for lab checks and had decided to start a registry of all breast implants in the country.

US health officials have long planned to build a registry that would track patients with implants, an idea that is being advocated again in the wake of the global scare.

The US Food and Drug Administration had warned about the safety of PIP implants as early as 2000 when it inspected the company's plant in France.

Jean-Claude Mas, the founder and CEO of French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), has not been seen or heard of in public since the scandal broke.

His former partner in the United States, implant industry pioneer Donald McGhan, has a history of legal troubles and is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence.