The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, says that the country needs to embrace digital innovation with advancing scientific solution to enhance food safety.
Osagie, represented by Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, said this on Monday in Abuja at a news briefing to mark 2021 World Food Safety Day with the slogan “Food Safety is Every One’s Business’’.
He said that the availability of safe and healthy food for all could be sustained into the future by embracing digital innovations, advancing scientific solutions and honouring traditional knowledge that has stood the test of time.
The minister said that the global foodborne disease burden affects mostly children under five and vulnerable population.
“Food is health product and the first component of basic health is delivery.
“Food is the fundamental of health and for this food to ultimately function as a health product for well being of people, the food must be safe, so food safety is a basic human right,’’ Osagie.
He said that in line with the theme “Safe Food now for a Healthy Tomorrow’’ meant that production and consumption of safe food have immediate and long-term benefits for people, the planet and the economy.
According to him, recognising the systemic connections between the health of people, animals, plants, the environment and the economy will help the nation meets the need of the future.
He said that concerted efforts on food safety would help Nigeria mitigate the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to him, it will boost the resilience for the long term by facilitating and accelerating food and agricultural trade and help to prevent the next zoonotic pandemic and transform the food safety systems.
Osagie said that the key challenges facing the enhancement of food safety for all tiers of government and the society were lack of awareness, paucity of data and information on the incidence of foodborne disease outbreak.
Others, he said, included a lack of understanding of food safety and quality standards as outlined in an international agreement and an inability to enforce compliance with international standards and global best practices.
According to him, other challenges are inadequate infrastructure and resources to support scientific risk analysis and upgrading of food safety regulatory system inefficient food supply chain and poor traceability system.
Dr Walter Mulombo, Head of Mission and Representative of World Health Organisation (WHO), Nigeria, said that everyone irrespective of their age, gender, health and economic status had the right to have access to safe, sufficient, and nutritious food.
He said that globally, an estimated 600 million almost one in 10 people in the world fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420,000 died every year.
(NAN)
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