Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. It is common knowledge that the condition of foods from the farms and handling by food processors are major determinants of nutritional status of a given society. But how safe is food in the country today?
Former Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, once stated that malnutrition contributes over 50 per cent of mortality among children under five years in Nigeria, hence the need to improve the quality of food processing in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, recent events have underlined the importance of food safety in Nigeria and Africa at large. An unprecedented number of food-borne disease outbreaks have been reported in Nigeria.
Experts say contamination of food and feeds arising from naturally occurring toxicants, microbiological contaminants, chemical contaminants such as additives used above the permitted levels, pesticide and veterinary residues in food or as toxic components from food processing could have deleterious effects in humans and animals. Bacterial contamination: Also, bacterial contamination, fungal toxins, pesticides and toxic metals have also been linked to food contaminants of major health concerns. Bacterial food-borne diseases caused by species of Salmonella, Clostridium, Campylobacter and Escherichia are of major health concerns in Nigeria. The presence of mycotoxins produced by toxigenic fungi in food and feed exacerbates endemic diseases such as malaria, hepatitis, HIV with consequent acute and chronic effects.
The lead poisoning in Zamfara state which caused the death of dozens of infants and children shows the poor attention given to toxic metals in food consumed in Sub Saharan Africa.
Improper use of food additives
File Photo
Similarly, improper use of food additives such as artificial sweeteners, could result in various ailments ranging from gastrointestinal disorders to carcinogenesis and death.
All these have been blamed on the lack of or inadequate application of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and the abuse of agrochemicals by farmers and during storage.
This week, WHO is issuing the first findings from what is 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 results are related to enteric infections caused by viruses, bacteria and protozoa that enter the body by ingestion of contaminated food. Unfortunately, the African region which Nigeria is part of recorded the highest disease burden for enteric foodborne disease, followed by South-East Asia over 40 percent people suffering from enteric diseases caused by contaminated food were children aged under 5 years.
In the report (yet to be released), unsafe food poses major economic risks, especially in a globalised 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.
These unprecedented occurrences may not be unconnected with the decision by the WHO to anchor this year’s World Health Day today, April 7 on Food safety related issues, with the theme: “From farm to plate, make food safe.”
A WHO manual for Integrated Food borne Disease Surveillance, notes that ensuring food safety is a critical and fundamental component of public health and food security. The manual states that efficient food safety and quality programmes reduce food losses by about 30 percent, which is important for food security.
Strengthening food safety: Furthermore, strengthening food safety will help minimize the burden of food borne diseases, reduce poverty and contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, 1, 4 and 8.
Sadly, while a number of countries and sub-sectors in the African Region have achieved notable progress in implementing food safety improvement strategies, many including Nigeria are still struggling to tailor their traditional food control systems to current food safety challenges.
The WHO manual shows that key response gaps include lack of policy coherence among the different sectors, inadequate food safety capacities, inadequate financial investments, fragmented food control systems, weak food borne disease surveillance, obsolete food regulation and weak law enforcement and the inability of small- and medium-scale producers to provide safe food.
In Nigeria, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has been in the forefront of ensuring food safety standards in the country. However, health watchers are unsure of the Agency’s end role.
A consultant on safety in health and environment, and Managing Consultant at First HACCP System Limited in Nigeria, Mrs. Zainab Akanji, in an interview noted that despite presence of regulatory agencies in the food safety and health sectors, there is poor enforcement of the processes.
Akanji blamed incidence that occurs daily in the areas of food poisoning and safety on handler error or non-compliance with food hygiene procedures. “We have food safety laws but most of them are there accumulating dust. If you ask a food business operator to tell you about food safety law and what he or she is meant to do as a food operator under the law, you will see that they won’t be able to tell you what the law says.”
She said for a complex nation like Nigeria, a well-designed and implemented safety and quality management system can reduce risk and improve performance and profitability.
In a statement, the WHO says a new data on the harm caused by foodborne illnesses underscore the global threats posed by unsafe foods, and the need for coordinated, cross-border action across the entire food supply chain.
Food supply chain
The WHO Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan argues that 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,” she states.
She suggests that efforts to prevent such emergencies can be strengthened, however, through development of robust food safety systems that drive collective government and public action to safeguard against chemical or microbial contamination of food.
“At the consumer end of the food supply chain, the public plays important roles in promoting food safety, from practising safe food hygiene and learning how to take care when cooking specific foods that may be hazardous (like raw chicken), to reading the labels when buying and preparing food. Safer food: The WHO Five Keys to Safer Food explain the basic principles that each individual should know all over the world to prevent foodborne diseases.
Food safety is a cross-cutting issue and shared responsibility that requires participation of non-public health sectors (i.e. agriculture, trade and commerce, environment, tourism) and support of major international and regional agencies and organizations active in the fields of food, emergency aid, and education.
However, as the world marks this year’s World Health Day, there is need for assent to the food science and technology safety bill before the presidency to reduce food poisoning and reposition Nigeria for global competitiveness.