| WHO representative to India lectures on reducing food-borne illnesses |
| Tuesday, 26 September, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST] |
| Our Bureau, New Delhi |
| Henk Bekedam, World Health Organisation (WHO) representative to India delivered a public lecture titled Reducing Burden of Food-borne Illnesses: Lessons from Other Countries. This was another step towards addressing the issue of food-borne illnesses taken by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) Initiative on Food Safety Sciences (CHIFFS), who are working in tandem to promote science-based food safety.
It was the fourth in the series of lectures aimed towards sharing and discussing the best experiences of several other countries, including western ones, in reducing the burden of food-borne illnesses. Food-borne diseases are a worldwide problem of great magnitude, both in terms of human suffering and economic costs. Despite the growing awareness at the national and international levels, food-borne diseases continue to remain a significant risk to health and socio-economic development and food safety remains marginalised. In India, the burden of food-borne diseases is not known, as most of them either go unrecognised or unreported, or are not investigated, and may be visible only if associated with a major public health or economic impact. However, as per the aggregate analysis of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) data between 2011 and 2015, food-borne outbreaks, together with acute diarrhoeal disease, constitute nearly half of all reported outbreaks under IDSP for the period between 2011 and 2016. |
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