Ensuring Food Safety
BY LIMANA SOLAIMAN MRIDHA
Imagine growing up in a country where you are afraid of giving fruit to your toddler or drinking milk because they may contain chemicals that would beat any litmus test. Recent news reports indicate that unsafe levels of formalin are added to fish, artificial sweetening or colours are injected into fruit like watermelon, and certain brands of turmeric powder contain lead.
Adulteration of food items with chemicals that are detrimental to human health is common in Bangladesh. The adverse effect of such additives is unlikely to be observed in the short term, as the appearance of diseases linked to the chemicals, such as cancer, kidney disorders and birth defects, occurs only after long-term exposure. This puts food safety of the country in jeopardy as contamination of food stuff and exposure of consumers to chemical hazards has a major repercussion on food security and consumer health.
According to estimates of WHO (World Health Organisation), food borne and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases kill approximately 2.2 million people worldwide annually. A majority of them, approximately 1.9 million of them are children. But due to the lax monitoring system in Bangladesh, a reliable assessment of public health impact due to food contamination is unavailable. ICDDR,B, an international health research organisation in Dhaka, has limited data available which show that about 501 patients visit hospitals per day for treatment of diarrhoea that were attributed to food and waterborne causes. A common scenario regarding food contamination reveals nonconformity with sanitary practices in food handling among both producers and retailers, particularly street food vendors.
Low level of awareness is contributing to aggravating the countrys food safety situation. Therefore, raising awareness, ensuring safe water, cleanliness and better hygiene training could play a major role in curbing food-borne diseases. A comprehensive risk analysis and risk management approach to food safety, from production to consumption, is required for protecting the public from such hazards. With this aim, Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) was set up in February 2015 to take a united stand with its full strength and diligent efforts.
BFSA unequivocally receives assistance from all food control agencies, food traders and people of the country to work towards the objective of establishing a modern and technological food safety system in Bangladesh.
Keeping in line with this purpose, BFSA recently organised a conference on Protecting Consumers: A Shared Responsibility, along with Foreign Investors Chamber of Commerce Industry (FICCI), Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Industry (MCCI), Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), the ministries of food and industries, in collaboration with 19 local and multinational companies.
An array of issues concerning food safety, such as harmonising food standards in Bangladesh with international norms, strengthening food standards in the country through regulatory gap analysis, the role of BFSA and the food industry were thoroughly discussed during the two-day event.
ANM Asaduzzaman, Director (Standard) of BSTI and member secretary of National Codex Coordination Committee, Bangladesh, talked about harmonisation of food standards by BSTI and the activities of the National Codex Committee, which is a joint WHO-FAO food standards programme.
Shah Monir, National Advisor, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) talked about regulatory gap analysis and strengthening food standards in Bangladesh. Abdul Baten Mia, Board Member of BFSA, presented the role of the authority in harmonising food standards.
About its activities, Khaled Hussain, Secretary, BFSA said: At first we are trying to identify and address the gaps that are preventing us
from ensuring total food safety. Our officers are conducting drives every week to check the marketplace for adulterated food items. But we need to empower all the entities that are working for food safety with rules and guidelines of the existing laws. We also need offices at district levels; we are hoping we will be able to have a system developed in a year or two. When it comes to food safety, the areas that need to be addressed include insufficient food safety analysis capacity, risk-based standard formulation, proper food inspection and enforcement services, food-borne illness surveillance, awareness building and effective education on food safety, coordination among the food safety regulators and of course, research on food safety management in Bangladesh
When it comes to challenges faced by the authority for ensuring food safety, S M Amirul Islam, Director, BFSA said: Our large population and diversified food habits pose a challenge for us as we are short-handed. We have about 2.5 million food business operators but not enough officers to conduct drives diligently in all the places. There are 20 departments under 12 ministries that are involved in food safety management and we are trying to synchronise their activities and support them in areas where they are lacking; we also help them identify the gaps in existing systems and work out a solution. We need more labs for testing food items for contamination, we are lacking in that department. We have no reference lab. People have a wrong perception and in many cases, they are being misled about food safety in this country. Unhygienic food habits and conditions in our supply chain are also a concern for us. We are hopeful that we will be able to build a synchronised management system with all the stakeholders in the near future to effectively assess and ensure food safety in Bangladesh.
Through sharing experiences of food control efforts of other countries in Asia like Indonesia and India, Halim Nababan of National Agency for Drug and Food Control of Indonesia, and Suneeti Toteja, Director, Food Safety Authority of India talked about the situations in their respective countries. The sessions also discussed the strengthening of national food control systems with experiences from the World Health Organisation.
Photos: Archives, internet
