Access to safe and healthy food is a necessity for everyone. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 1 in 10 people fall ill each year due to consuming contaminated food. About 420,000 adults and 125,000 children (younger than five years old) die yearly due to foodborne illnesses.
Though reports on the burdens of food safety or foodborne diseases are scarce in the region, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have the third-highest estimated burden of foodborne illnesses per population, after the African and South-East Asia regions.
Simply put, food safety refers to routines in the preparation, handling and storage of food meant to prevent foodborne illness and injury. From harvest to processing plants or packaging factories for onward transportation, ensuring safe practices is crucial to food safety.
Qatar has extensively underlined its commitment to food safety and security for citizens and residents. Yesterday, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and Ministry of Municipality and Environment announced the launch of the monitoring and surveillance programme to control food pollutants and pathogens during the initial stages of production and processing and throughout the food chain as part of the multisectoral health approach.
According to the Director of Food Safety and Environmental Health at MoPH, Wassan Abdulla Al Baker, the programme has been developed to better understand human-to-animal diseases and identify gaps to prevent the contamination of food products in the food chain. On the other hand, the Director of the Livestock Department at MME Eng. Abdulaziz Mahmoud Al Ziyara, also added that the programme complements Qatar’s efforts to ensure food free of pollutants and pathogens – providing healthy options for the general public.
As Qatar matches toward holistic food security, it is essential to research the effects of modern production techniques on food production. Hence, MoPH signed an agreement with the UK Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera Science Limited) to promote scientific and technical cooperation on food safety and environmental health.
The agreement provides a framework for enhanced cooperation in food safety research, particularly food contaminant and risk management analyses, analyses of products of animal origin, specialised tests of unforeseen toxins, food fraud detection techniques, dissemination of scientific research and development results and professional consultancy services in food safety and environmental health. It is worth noting that the MME recently destroyed 1,440kg of vegetables that were unfit for human consumption in Al Rayyan Municipality.
