WORLD HEALTH DAY: UN stresses importance of food safety – from farm to plate

With the United Nations health agency highlighting food safety on World Health Day, the Secretary-General today called for unified efforts to ensure that production, distribution, and preparation of food is done safely. “The health, agriculture, trade, and environment sectors need to work together,” said Ban Ki-moon. “We all have a role to play in keeping food safe – from farm to plate.” Mr. Ban pointed to the more than 200 diseases that can come from contaminated food and to the constantly evolving threat from new production, distribution and consumption methods, as well as the emergence of resistant bacteria. “With the food supply chain stretching around the world, the need to strengthen food safety systems within and among countries is becoming more critical,” he said. “That is why, on World Health Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on countries and all actors to improve food safety from farm to plate and everywhere in between.” With the food supply chain stretching around the world, the need to strengthen food safety systems within and among countries is becoming more critical. To mark the day, the WHO released new data on the harm caused by foodborne illnesses and the global threat posed by unsafe foods. “Food production has been industrialized and its trade and distribution have been globalised,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. “These changes introduce multiple new opportunities for food to become contaminated with harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemicals.” The WHO's findings are part of a broader ongoing analysis of the global burden of foodborne diseases, the full results of which will be released in October, and they show that 582 million cases of 22 different foodborne diseases were reported in 2010, with 351,000 deaths from diseases including Salmonella, E.Coli and norovirus. Most cases were recorded Africa and South-East Asia and 40 per cent of those suffering from food-borne diseases from contaminated food were children under five years-old. In response, Dr. Chan stressed the need for coordinated, cross-border action across the entire food supply chain to ensure food safety as she launched World Health Day under the slogan 'From farm to plate, make food safe.' “A local food safety problem can rapidly become an international emergency,” she said. “Investigation of an outbreak of foodborne disease is vastly more complicated when a single plate or package of food contains ingredients from multiple countries.”