{"id":41346,"date":"2019-02-13T07:24:53","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T07:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/?p=41346"},"modified":"2019-02-13T07:24:53","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T07:24:53","slug":"shared-responsibility-to-stop-420000-needless-deaths-from-tainted-food-each-year-un-world-leaders-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/news\/shared-responsibility-to-stop-420000-needless-deaths-from-tainted-food-each-year-un-world-leaders-warn\/2019\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Shared responsibility\u2019 to stop 420,000 needless deaths from tainted food each year, UN, world leaders warn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ONkKy68HEIM\" width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Each year, food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals cause more than 600 million people to fall ill, and 420,000 to die worldwide, prompting a call from world leaders on Tuesday for greater international cooperation to make the food chain safer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On Tuesday, the First International Food Safety Conference, in Addis Ababa \u2013 organized by the United Nations\u2019 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO) World Trade Organization (WTO) and the African Union (AU) \u2013 shone a light on the need to root out dangerous food, which is also hampering progress towards sustainable development everywhere.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Food should be a source of nourishment and enjoyment, not a cause of disease or death \u2013 WHO chief<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cSafeguarding our food is a shared responsibility. We must all play our part\u201d, said FAO Director-General Jos\u00e9 Graziano da Silva at the Conference. \u201cWe must work together to scale up food safety in national and international political agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Unsafe food-related illness overloads healthcare systems and damages economies, trade and tourism. Moreover, the impact of unsafe food costs low- and middle-income economies around $95 billion in lost productivity each year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThere is no food security without food safety,\u201d underlined the FAO chief, calling the conference \u201ca great opportunity for the international community to strengthen political commitments and engage in key actions\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Food safety must be a paramount goal at every stage of the food chain, from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, preparation and consumption, conference participants stressed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cFood should be a source of nourishment and enjoyment, not a cause of disease or death\u201d, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, who pointed out that although unsafe food is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, it has \u201cnot received the political attention it deserves\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cEnsuring people have access to safe food takes sustained investment in stronger regulations, laboratories, surveillance and monitoring\u201d, he continued, adding: \u201cIn our globalized world, food safety is everyone\u2019s issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For his part, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo flagged food safety as \u201ca central element of public health\u201d which will be \u201ccrucial in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cTrade is an important force to lift people out of poverty\u2026 when we reconvene in Geneva in April we will consider these issues in more depth,\u201d he added, referring to a follow-up event billed as the International Forum on Food Safety and Trade, due to take place in Geneva.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The current and forthcoming meetings are expected to galvanize support and lead to actions in key areas that are strategic for the future of food safety.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Meanwhile, Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, underscored that the UN-AU partnership has been \u201clongstanding and strategic,\u201d calling the food safety conference \u201ca demonstration of this partnership\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The conference aims to identify key actions to ensure safe food and a strengthened commitment to scale up food safety in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Some 130 countries are participating in the two-day conference, including ministers of agriculture, health, and trade; scientific experts; partner agencies; civil society organizations; and the private sector.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Food systems are becoming ever more complex and interlinked, blurring regulatory responsibility lines and requiring concerted international action.While technological advances, digitalization and processing methods provide opportunities to enhance food safety while improving nutrition, livelihoods and trade, climate change, globalized food production and a growing global population pose new challenges to food safety.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Food safety systems must also keep pace with food production and consumption. This requires coordinated approaches for regulatory legislation and disease surveillance and food monitoring programmes that are supported by information technologies, shared information and training.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8216;Like air &amp; water, food is fundamental to life itself. We need it to survive &amp; thrive.<br \/>\nFood is an essential part of what it means to be human. Which is why unsafe food is so unacceptable&#8217;- <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrTedros?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@DrTedros<\/a> at Addis Ababa <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FoodSafety?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#FoodSafety<\/a> Conference <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/27lBAt8nr7\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/27lBAt8nr7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHO\/status\/1095262074983378945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 12, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FoodSafety?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#FoodSafety<\/a> is not an issue for one country. It is an issue for every country and every region. That\u2019s why <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@WHO<\/a> supports the development of an African food safety agency, to strengthen continent-wide standards and regulations&#8217;-<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrTedros?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@DrTedros<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/HealthForAll?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#HealthForAll<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l4eTv2mFkN\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/l4eTv2mFkN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHO\/status\/1095349830300434432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 12, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FoodSafety?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#FoodSafety<\/a> is not an issue for one country. It is an issue for every country and every region. That\u2019s why <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@WHO<\/a> supports the development of an African food safety agency, to strengthen continent-wide standards and regulations&#8217;-<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrTedros?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@DrTedros<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/HealthForAll?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#HealthForAll<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l4eTv2mFkN\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/l4eTv2mFkN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHO\/status\/1095349830300434432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 12, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Each year, food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals cause more than 600 million people to fall ill, and 420,000 to die worldwide, prompting a call from world leaders on Tuesday for greater international cooperation to make the food chain safer. On Tuesday, the First International Food Safety Conference, in Addis Ababa [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}