Food Safety is “Assurance that food will not cause harm to the consumer when it is prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use” (Codex Alimentarius 1969). Food safety is a significant public health issue for all governments around the world. It is estimated that each year up to 30% of the world’s population suffers from some form of food-borne disease (WHO, 2007).
Most people at one point in their lives will have an unpleasant experience of a foodborne disease as a result of consuming contaminated food with one or more of the following agents; harmful bacteria, parasites, viruses, toxins, and chemicals including radioactive materials (WHO year).
Food allergy is also another emerging food safety concern. Contamination of food in the production chain can occur in any stage between production and consumption. Therefore, it is the responsibility of everyone in the production chain to ensure that the food in whatever form is not contaminated. Proper food handling and preparation can however prevent most foodborne diseases.
Foodborne diseases are important causes of morbidity and mortality, and a significant impediment to socio-economic development worldwide, but the full extent and burden of unsafe food, and especially the burden arising from chemical and parasitic contaminants, has been unknown. Precise information on the burden of foodborne diseases can adequately inform policy-makers so as to allocate appropriate resources for food safety control and intervention efforts.
It should however be noted that the full effects and economic costs of unsafe food are not fully well known but the impact on health, trade, and development is quite enormous as hundreds of millions of FBD cases costing billions of dollars occur each year (Grace D, 2015).
Foodborne disease surveillance and reporting systems are so weak and varied that global estimations are so difficult and very inaccurate (Yasmine M, et al 1997. CDC data suggests there is an under-reporting of foodborne illnesses by consumers.
Underreporting or failure to report FBDs may probably be attributed to lack of knowledge by consumers about safe food handling practices, source of food safety hazards & risks, and the effects of consuming unsafe foods (Susan A et al, 2013). Consumers attribute being too ill, not knowing who to contact, being unsure of the cause of illness, and lack of belief of benefits of reporting as reasons for not reporting foodborne illness. (Susan A et al, 2013).
Some of the barriers to FBDs being diagnosed by healthcare professionals include the amount of time between patients’ consumption of food and seeking treatment, distance to health centers, ignorance, cost of treatment, access among others. These barriers identified could be overcome with targeted education and improved access and information about the reporting process. (Susan A et al, 2013).
Irrespective of the inaccurate FBDs reporting, the data got are needed to raise awareness on the problem of FBD prevalence, setting food safety measures priorities using existing resources in a cost-effective way and evaluating the impact of the interventions. Emphasis should be placed on the development and strengthening of FBDs investigation and surveillance system at the national level and guidance in harmonizing investigation and reporting systems be provided at the international level (Yasmine M, et al 1997.) Reasonable evidence exists that indicates that developing countries bear the brunt of FBD where food safety-related issues have been largely ignored (LMIC). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 30% of the population suffer from FBDs in developed countries while more than 2 million deaths occur in developing countries each year (Saurabh. K, et al, 2016)
FBDs due to Salmonella contamination in low moisture foods including nuts is re-emerging as a significant problem in the industry. For example, in the USA, two outbreaks of Salmonella enterica serotypes Tennessee and Typhimurium were traced to peanut in 2006-2007 and 2008-2009 (GMA, 2010).
Practically speaking, no food can be said to be absolutely safe, however, food can be considered to be safe if there is reasonable demonstrated certainty that no harm will result from its consumption under anticipated conditions of use (Oloo JO, 2010)
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