Food and Drugs Authority develops plan on food safety
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has developed a strategic action plan to operationalise Ghana’s food safety policy.
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The five-year plan seeks to enhance food safety throughout the production, processing, transportation, storage and retailing chain for a holistic management of food safety in the country.
It will be executed at an estimated cost of GH¢21 million with funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It will also include risk-based analysis, importer verification and third party accreditations processes.
Sensitisation
The coming into force of the policy will also ensure the accreditation of local food laboratories and equipment by a United States US-based food accreditation agency.
It will also give the FDA an increased authority to issue a mandatory recall of foods and fish products found to be unwholesome to the consuming public.
Food-borne diseases are said to be on a global ascendency with diarrhoea killing some 32,000 people in Africa annually.
The draft policy is presently awaiting Cabinet approval.
According to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mr John Odame Darkwah, food contamination, apart from causing a broad spectrum of non-specific diseases, could have cardiovascular effects.
He was speaking at a sensitisation programme in Accra last Friday.
Representatives of the other key stakeholder institutions working on food safety issues, such as the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), the Veterinary Services, the Ministries of Health, Trade, Food and Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, the Interior, Tourism Culture and Creative Arts and academia, hoteliers and traditional caterers associations, attended the one-day programme.
Poor co-ordination
Mr Darkwah was of the view that communities and smallholder farmers should also be involved in the process of food safety.
“Villagers and smallholder farmers ought to be made aware of how manure such as cow manure can contaminate vegetable yields and the risks that could arise if food is not handled and prepared properly,” Mr Odame pointed out.
He indicated that a situational analysis conducted by the authority on food safety revealed that fragmented roles and poorly coordinated institutions existed in respect of food safety activities.
That, he said, informed the decision for the development of new organisational framework to define core responsibilities.
“Food safety needs a multisector approach that requires strengthening inter-sectoral collaboration to put in place coordination mechanisms for prevention of food-borne disease,” he said.
Mr Odame emphasised that the implementation of the policy would not only protect public health and safety but also economically empower actors in the food chain, ensure accessibility to international markets and provide essentials for tourism.
Technology
The head of Bacteriology at the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Bashiru Boi Kikimoto, indicated that the WHO had developed a diagnostic tool on food safety for the African region.
The Whole Genome Sequence Technology, which is a one-stop gap diagnostic device, is used for the diagnosis of zoonotic food-borne diseases.
According to Dr Kikimoto, the device would play a very important role in the detection of food-borne disease outbreak as well as identify pathogen sources responsible for food contamination.
WHO
The Focal Person for health promotion at the WHO Ghana Office, Ms Joana Ansong, said food-borne diseases had become a major public heath challenge across the globe.
More worrying, she said, were the constant emerging threats to food safety that continued to emerge.
“Changes in food production, distribution, consumption, environment, new and emerging pathogens poses challenges to national food safety systems,” she said.
Ms Ansong was hopeful the action plan would be embraced by the public and given the needed support to thrive.
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