According to webinar speakers, global food safety networks have played a key role in sharing information about food incidents over the past two decades.
This week a webinar was held to mark the 20th anniversary of the FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN).
INFOSAN is also part of the WHO Alliance for Food Safety and will support it in helping countries build their surveillance systems. The Alliance for Food Safety held its first meeting in Geneva in May.
The World Food Safety Day campaign for 7 June 2024 focused on the theme “Food Safety: Preparing for the Unexpected”.
Rachel El Khoury of INFOSAN said: “This year’s theme highlights the importance of being proactive and adaptive in the face of emerging food safety challenges. INFOSAN supports WHO Member States to identify and address food safety risks early and ensure emergency preparedness.”
El Khoury said INFOSAN’s membership will grow from 215 in 2013 to more than 800 by 2024.
“This expansion reflects the growing global recognition of the importance of international food safety cooperation. INFOSAN is present in 189 WHO Member States but still needs to cover five more countries,” she said.
“INFOSAN’s accomplishments over the past 20 years are a testament to the importance of international cooperation and communication to ensure food safety around the world. The network continues to lead the way in building a community that is better able to respond to food safety emergencies and protect communities from the impacts of foodborne illnesses.”
Weak and fragile food safety
Eleonora Dupuy, FAO food safety officer, cited figures from the WHO’s Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) published in 2015, which said foodborne infections caused 600 million illnesses and 420,000 deaths in 2010. The figures will be updated in 2025, but the estimates are based on a time series analysis starting from 2000, meaning they show trends rather than any one particular year.
“Food safety is sensitive to trends such as population growth, increasing food demand, urbanization and migration, as well as rapid changes in agri-food systems, such as the circular economy, new food production systems, methods, processes, sources and practices, and the way food is distributed, stored and consumed,” she said.
“Food safety is fragile and can be compromised by biological, chemical and physical hazards; climate change; extreme weather and disasters such as droughts, floods and storms; and accidents such as power outages and nuclear accidents. The most serious risks we may face in the next decade are rapid technological evolution; economic crises; geopolitical instability, tensions and conflicts, with sudden and often unpredictable events.
“All these risks pose enormous challenges and immense pressure on the country’s food control system and the operations of food businesses. Ensuring food safety requires predicting possible occurrences to minimise risks. We need to prepare for known as well as unknown threats. Preparing for the unexpected requires forecasting, preparation, large amounts of different types of data, information exchange and effective communication.”
The value of data
Julie Moss, director of CFSAN’s Office of International Affairs, said data needs to be used in risk management to better prioritize activities and available resources.
“In our risk management function, everything we do is data-driven. We use data for risk assessment, risk management, root cause investigations, all prevention activities and prioritizing our work plans,” she said.
“If an outbreak occurs, we want to do everything we can to prevent it from happening again. Over the past few years, we have looked back at why outbreaks occurred and worked to prevent them from happening again. Data informs our regulatory actions, decision-making and trend analysis, and also sheds light on issues such as enoki mushrooms that are unknown to us in the U.S. To understand why outbreaks occurred, we need to understand how this commodity is grown.”
“For the FDA to pressure a company to recall a product or issue a public health notice implicating a product, it must rely on a body of evidence to establish that food is a vector for outbreak investigation. The FDA has epidemiological, laboratory, and tracing information that informs how the agency should act regarding outbreak conditions.”
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