First Food Safety Conference Pulls Alarms
Food safety
is an essential public health priority all over the world, Gro Harlem Brundtland,
director-general of the World Health Organization, told the opening session
of the first Global Forum on Food Safety.
WHO estimates
2.1 million people die annually from diarrhea, mainly caused by tainted
food or water, and that even in developing countries, up to one-third of
the population suffers from food-borne disease every year.
"Many countries
are reporting significant increases in food-borne disease," said Brundtland,
who along with other international food and health experts are hoping the
Marrakech, Morocco, meeting, to which she spoke via videocast, will pave
the way to setting international standards in food safety.
The increases
in food-borne diseases, explained Brundtland, is that food-safety systems
"are not keeping up with changes in microbiological and chemical hazards,
shifting food consumption patterns and growing urbanization."
"Feeding properly
the hundreds of millions of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition
requires attention not only to calorie needs, but also to quality concerns,"
said Dr. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, who also addressed participants by video.
"Food safety
concerns all participants in the food chain, from primary producers to
consumers, as food can be contaminated by pathogens at any link of this
chain," Diouf told the more than 300 participants from 120 countries and
international organizations who attended the opening session.
"Responsibility
for food safety must also be shared by the private sector," said Diouf,
adding that although the WHO and FAO were ready to play a major role in
setting up an integrated international food-safety system, this was a concern
for everyone.
"Food safety
and food security are inseparable," said Diouf to the FAO organized and
sponsored meeting.
"Not long ago,
food safety, like tobacco, was regarded as a luxury problem of the industrial
world," Brundtland said. "Luckily, that misperception has changed for tobacco."
What is needed,
said Tahami Khayari, Morocco's health minister, is "a proper early warning
system," to help establish proper food safety.
"Building and
strengthening such an international system to respond to transboundary
food safety emergencies can also effectively increase preparedness and
response to international bioterrorism, which unfortunately is of particular
concern today," said Hartwig de Haen, an assistant director-general with
FAO.
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