Safe Foods - the Basis of a Healthy Nation
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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On April 7, World Health Day will be celebrated. In connection with this holiday, the World Health Organization intends to focus on problems related to food safety.
According to new data, the health damage caused by food poisoning, begins to acquire a global nature. Based on this, WHO proposes to strengthen the control over transportation and storage of food products.
Margaret Chan, CEO of Woz in her speech noted that trade and marketing of food products in modern conditions contributes to contamination of the latter by parasites, chemicals, various viruses and bacteria. She also stressed that the problem at the local level could turn into an international emergency. In addition, it is difficult to establish the origin of food poisoning due to the fact that in one plate or package can be products from different countries.
Food can be contaminated during transport by dangerous viruses, bacteria, parasites, and chemicals and provoke the development of more than two hundred diseases, ranging from stool disorder and ending with oncology.
The main examples of poor-quality food are meat, fruit, vegetables.
Especially common are intestinal infections caused by poor-quality food. In 2010, it was recorded more than 500 million. Cases of various enteric infections (a total of 22 species), 351 thousand of which became lethal.
In most cases, death is caused by infection with salmonella (52 thousand deaths), enteropathogenic E. Coli (37 thousand), norovirus (35 thousand).
The most severe and dangerous intestinal diseases were recorded in Africa and South-East Asia.
Of all cases of intestinal infections caused by food, approximately 40% falls on children under 5 years.
In addition, dangerous food products pose a threat to the economy, especially in the context of the transformation of world space into a single zone.
An outbreak of Escherichia coli intestinal infection, which occurred in Germany, caused losses to farmers and industry worth more than $ 1 billion, while the United States paid more than $ 200 million to help 22 EU countries.
Such problems can be prevented through the development of reliable food safety systems. Such systems should stimulate both the state and the public to ensure measures to prevent food contamination with microbes or chemicals.
WHO notes that action can be taken both globally and nationally, including international platforms that ensure food safety, for example INFOSAN (the international network of food safety authorities).
The public plays an important role in promoting the safety of products. First of all it is necessary to inform the population as much as possible about the need for hygiene and the proper preparation of certain types of products, for example, raw chicken or meat. Also, every consumer should carefully read the labels, where it should be indicated, how to properly prepare this or that kind of products.
WHO published five basic principles that all citizens need to know to prevent cases of intestinal infections.
The head of the WHO Department for Food Safety noted that often only after the crisis has occurred do we realize that the safety of food products that fall on our plates is important.
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