World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for cross-border action across global supply chain to ensure people consume safe foods.
WHO is highlighting challenges and opportunities associated with food safety under the theme 'From farm to plate, make food safe' on the occasion of World Health Day (WHD) being observed on April 7.
WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said, "Food production has been industrialized and its trade and distribution have been globalized. These changes introduce multiple new opportunities for food to become contaminated with harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemicals." Unsafe food can contain harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances, and cause more than 200 diseases - ranging from diarrhoea to cancers.
Examples of unsafe food include undercooked foods of animal origin, fruits and vegetables contaminated with faeces, and shellfish containing marine biotoxins.
WHO last week issued the first findings from a broader ongoing analysis of the global burden of foodborne diseases.
The full results of this research, being undertaken by WHO’s Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG), are expected to be released in October 2015.
Some important preliminary results relate to enteric infections caused by viruses, bacteria and protozoa that enter the body by ingestion of contaminated food.
The initial FERG figures, from 2010, show that: there were an estimated 582 million cases of 22 different foodborne enteric diseases and 351 000 associated deaths; the enteric disease agents responsible for most deaths were Salmonella Typhi (52 000 deaths), enteropathogenic E. coli (37 000) and norovirus (35 000).
African region recorded the highest disease burden for enteric foodborne disease, followed by South-East Asia; over 40% people suffering from enteric diseases caused by contaminated food were children aged under 5 years.
Unsafe food also poses major economic risks, especially in a globalized world.
Germany's 2011 E.coli outbreak reportedly caused US$ 1.3 Billion in losses for farmers and industries and US$ 236 Million in emergency aid payments to 22 European Union Member States.
"A local food safety problem can rapidly become an international emergency. Investigation of an outbreak of foodborne disease is vastly more complicated when a single plate or package of food contains ingredients from multiple countries," Dr Chan said.