TIRANA Nov 29 /ATA/ – By I.Vata/ The current challenges facing safe production, trade and consumption of food require a more efficient response to food safety incidents to better adapt to States’ requests and needs as they arise. It is of vital importance that when it comes to the consumer, all that matters is that the food we eat is safe and nutritious.
To that end, a two-day food safety training event brought together in Durrës, Albania, relevant actors in Western Balkans, to discuss ways of improving food safety and address appropriate actions to prevent illness, and foster collaboration across sectors for improved food safety.
With the support of WHO and financial backing from the EU, 25 participants from 6 countries of the Western Balkans region came together in Durrës, Albania, on 25–26 November 2021 to work on strengthening their core capacities aimed at enhancing their capacities to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats associated with unsafe food.
In her address to the workshop, Dr. Eugena Tomini, Deputy Minister of Health and Social Protection of Albania, stressed that in the context of sustainable food systems, “it is very important to strengthen capacity in the Western Balkans on the epidemiology, prevention and control of foodborne pathogens, with in-depth discussions about risk communication, antimicrobial resistance and the One Health perspective.”
By participating in exercises like this workshop, she added, the managers of national food safety programmes and other government representatives involved in related food safety emergency response participating, become familiar with the risk analysis tools and able to apply these in the investigation and response to food safety emergencies.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed systemic weakness in almost all our countries, for Dr. Gerald Rockenschaub, WHO Representative and Head of Country Office in Albania, it is important for us to harness the opportunity to strengthen our systems to better respond to any kind of future emergencies and crisis.
“One of those emergencies we need to put particular attention to, is food safety,” he said, adding that the recommendations provided by the Monti Report to recover from the coronavirus pandemic “clearly highlight ‘One Health’ as the approach to be taken forward,” which means to take human, animal, and environmental health together and “strengthen our systems so that they can better manage and prevent future emergencies from happening.”
Dr. Abebayehu Assefa Mengistu, Coordinator of WHO/Europe’s WHE Balkan Hub, points out that food safety is a cross-border issue and there is a need to improve procedures and practices used for investigation and response to food safety incidents and emergencies in the Western Balkans region. “There is no food security without safety,” he emphasizes, cautioning that while more than 200 diseases can be transmitted through food, the issue of food safety can also impact the economy of the region.
Such trainings are designed to help the Western Balkan region’s public health, food safety and veterinary sectors, including representatives of the health and agriculture ministries, adopt and learn more about risk-based tools, standard operating procedures, instructions, procedures, and guides to effectively respond to foodborne diseases, communicate, and share information, Dr Mengistu said.
Emphasis of the workshop was put on intersectoral cooperation, collaboration, and information sharing, and how the synergy of food safety and agriculture has a public health impact. Speakers were experts from the FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN), WHO/Europe and national authorities.
Every year in Europe and Central Asia alone, over 23 million people fall sick from foodborne illness, burdening most heavily the poor and young. In addition, foodborne illness is responsible for 5 000 preventable deaths every year.
Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances can cause more than 200 different diseases – ranging from diarrhoea to cancers. Around the world, an estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people – fall ill after eating contaminated food each year, resulting in 420 000 deaths.
