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Dr Arvind Mathur, WHO Representative in Timor-Leste
Food safety is an essential component of public health. Access to adequate quantities of safe and nutritious food is key to sustaining life and promoting health. Consumption of unsafe food can lead to foodborne illnesses, posing a greater risk to vulnerable groups such as infants, children, the elderly, the immunocompromised, and those who are malnourished. The WHO South-East Asia Region has the second highest health burden from consumption of contaminated food compared to other WHO regions. Every year, approximately 150 million people in the region become ill and 175 000 die.
Food safety is also of paramount importance in Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste’s focus on food safety is closely tied to national nutrition and food security goals. Timor-Leste imports approximately 60% of its food supply, so food control enforcement is essential to ensure that the country does not receive unsafe and fraudulent imported food. Unsafe food is unfit for human consumption. Therefore, it is important that we all recognize the importance of food safety in our daily lives.
Timor-Leste has just joined the WTO and the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement urges Timor-Leste to develop science-based food safety measures, which is essential to protect consumers from health risks associated with the free flow of food across borders. Timor-Leste is expected to become a full member of ASEAN and must be prepared to actively participate in the priority areas of cooperation proposed by ASEAN. This participation includes ensuring food safety, which is one of the four major areas of the ASEAN Health Development Agenda.
In this context, I am pleased to note that Timor-Leste is stepping up actions to strengthen its regulatory framework in terms of food labelling, food quality and import and export controls. These efforts demonstrate the Government’s commitment to protecting consumers from unsafe food and deceptive advertising. The Ministry of Health, with support from the WHO Timor-Leste Office, in collaboration with other ministries and food safety authorities, conducted a self-assessment of its food control system, capturing opportunities and challenges within the country’s existing legal and institutional framework for food control. It highlighted the key investments required to effectively implement a risk-based approach to ensure food safety from farm to table. One of the most important recommended investments is the development of an overarching national food law that provides for food safety assurance and food control systems from production to consumption, in line with global standards developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
Achieving food safety requires collaboration across sectors. The health sector is promoting hygiene and sanitation to prevent foodborne diseases that can hamper nutritional intake. To increase domestic primary productivity, the agriculture sector must implement Codex standards and other international best practices to ensure the safety and quality of agricultural products. The trade sector can help food companies, especially those in less developed countries, to produce safe, high-quality food that meets Codex standards, thereby improving market access, while the social sector should enable consumers to accept a food safety culture by investing in basic infrastructure such as water, sanitation and energy.
National food laws and technical regulations on food labelling, food quality and import and export controls can provide the framework to enhance coordination among these different stakeholders.
As we mark World Food Safety Day, our shared vision remains that everyone in Timor-Leste has access to healthy, nutritious and safe food. As Timor-Leste prioritizes multisectoral action to ensure nutrition and food security, we must ensure that efforts to streamline food safety go hand in hand.
The theme of this year’s World Food Safety Day is “Prepare for a Rainy Day”. Food safety is everyone’s responsibility. With strong national food control systems, coupled with increased community awareness, we can improve our preparedness to respond to any food safety incident. Timor-Leste can also benefit greatly from the FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN), as a member of the network, which facilitates rapid information exchange during global food safety crises. Harnessing the full potential of the network can greatly help Timor-Leste implement risk management strategies to reduce foodborne diseases and protect lives.
On this occasion, I call on the people of Timor-Leste to recognize the importance of food safety in their own environment – at home, in school and when buying food at the market. As consumers, we should all handle food safely at home and follow the Five Keys to Safe Food, which are cleanliness, separation of raw and cooked food, cooking thoroughly, keeping food at safe temperatures and using safe water and ingredients when cooking at home. We should also know how to report and respond to food safety incidents if we experience them.
Food safety incidents affect health, livelihoods and businesses. Let’s prepare to minimize the impact: Plan, Prepare, Act!
Tattoli
Source: WHO
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