Review policies on food safety - Outgoing Health Minister
The outgoing Minister of Health, Dr Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah, has called on all agencies under the ministry to review and update policies and protocols relating to food safety.
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He also called on ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to carry out similar reviews and updates of all food safety policies and protocols to take care of emerging and existing situations.
The minister, whose speech was read on his behalf by the Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME) of the ministry, Dr Afisah Zakaria, made the call at the launch of this year’s World Health Day in Accra yesterday.
He said the review should also take care of both national and international requirements.
World Health Day is celebrated on April 7 every year and the theme for this year’s celebration is: “Food safety”, with the slogan: “From farm to plate, make food safe”.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the Africa region recorded the highest number of food-borne diseases, with children under five being the most affected.
Issues
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in the last 70 years, 335 new infectious diseases had been identified, including food-borne ones, of which a third were linked to changes in agriculture and food production.
To help resolve such issues, the outgoing Minister of Health said there was the need for the urgent implementation of policy issues.
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A societal issue which required urgent solution, he said, was street vendor activity which, according to him, had become a major business, with food joints serving food close to open gutters and in dirty environments.
Another issue was the sale of alcohol at various lorry stations which, he said, needed to be stopped and called on the various transport unions to ensure compliance with earlier directives of ‘no sale of alcohol’ at lorry stations.
Threats of food safety
“We know and we want everybody to recognise that new threats to food safety are constantly emerging,” he said.
He added that in Ghana, as in other countries, increasing use of chemicals, fertilisers and herbicides or insecticides at various levels of cropping had led to many changes in food production, distribution and consumption.
“Similarly, the use of these chemicals has brought changes to the soil and even to the environment, resulting in the emergence of new bacteria and toxins that pose a threat to food safety,” Dr Agyemang-Mensah said.
Chemical contamination, he said, could lead to acute poisoning or long-term diseases such as cancer, while food-borne diseases might lead to long-lasting disability or death.
National food safety policy
In a presentation on: “Advancing food safety in Ghana: The need for multi-sectoral collaboration”, the Deputy Chief Executive of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Mr John Odame-Darkwah, said the major concern in Ghana was the non-availability of a national food safety regulation system.
According to him, there was an urgent need to adequately “coordinate our food safety control system if we want to see progress”.
To that end, he said, a draft national food safety policy had been put together by a multi-stakeholder task team to coordinate issues on food safety in the country.
The policy, he said, would help provide guidelines for effective and efficient food safety control systems in the country, adding that it would be coordinated by the FDA and it would help develop a national plan of action to implement the policy.
A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Elias Sory, who chaired the launch, said in the area of food safety, the country still had a lot to do.
Writer's email- rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh
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