Food safety will reduce deaths

2005-10-03 12:59

Johannesburg - Improved food safety would help to reduce the 2 000 deaths estimated to occur every day in Africa from food and waterborne diseases, two United Nations (UN) agencies said on Monday.

"Food-borne diseases are a serious threat, especially for Africans already weakened from devastating conditions such as malaria and HIV/Aids," said the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

They were speaking at the first regional food safety conference for Africa, in Harare, where 200 food safety officials and experts from 50 countries are attending a four-day conference.

The meeting of food experts is expected to agree on ways to strengthen existing food safety systems, to ensure safer food for better health and agricultural trade opportunities.

Food safety responsibility must be ?shared?

"Many African countries do not have adequate food security, resulting in a situation where at least 60% of the food supply is imported to supplement local production," according to a report.

The report calls on "governments, the private sector, consumers and others to work in a concerted manner in this shared responsibility of assuring food safety from farm to fork".

With this goal, the regional conference on food safety for Africa is expected to discuss an Africa-wide strategic plan of Action for Food Safety.

Focusing on the complete food production chain, the plan will devote special attention to areas where intervention can significantly lower the risk from food-borne disease.

Monitoring mycotoxins in food

The conference will include discussions on prevention and control of mycotoxins in staple African crops such as maize, groundnuts and dried fruits.

"Food and water transmit a variety of disease-causing agents which are at the origin of the high burden of diarrhoea cases.

"In Africa, these are estimated at up to four episodes per child per year," says Dr Chris Ngenda Mwikisa, Director of the Division of Healthy Environment and Sustainable Development at the WHO regional office for Africa.

Already this year 34 000 cases of cholera due to contaminated water and food have been reported in 30 countries, with more than 1 000 deaths.

Establishing pan-African food safety standards would not only save lives and improve the health of African people, it would go a long way toward helping Africa join in international trade and raise African living standards, particularly in rural areas when most of the poor are subsisting, Mwikisa said.

According to the UN agencies "the recently established International Food Safety Authorities Network (Infosan) enables member states to exchange key information and be alerted when international food safety events occur".

- SAPA