Farmers, small and medium-scale food handlers and processors in Nigeria have been urged to embrace good agricultural and post-harvest food practices to avert preventable morbidity and deaths associated with related diseases and poisoning.
This is, as the World Food Safety Day, is celebrated globally today, and the World Health Organisation (WHO), says food-related diseases affect one in every 10 people worldwide, yearly. There are over 200 diseases associated with food, it noted.
Food post-harvest specialists, who spoke with The Guardian, decried use of chemicals to ripen fruits, use of insecticides on smoked fish, washing of fruits with unclean water, application of unapproved chemicals on beans to prevent pests, and use of detergents in cassava bye-products such as fufu, describing such practices as capable of jeopardising public health.
They also warned Nigerians against eating foods with excessive smoke deposits like smoked fish not properly processed. A research finding published in Journal of Public Health and Epidemiology, entitled, ‘Knowledge of food borne infection and food safety practices among local food handlers in Ijebu-Ode Local Government Area of Ogun State,’ by Oladoyinbo Catherine Adebukola and others, stated that estimated 47.8 million, two million and 750,000 people in the United States, United Kingdom and France, respectively, become ill as a result of consumption of food containing pathogens or disease causing substances.
No fewer than 5.4 million cases of food-borne illness was estimated to occur yearly in Australia, causing 18,000 hospitalised cases, 120 deaths, keeping 21 million people away from work, 1.2 million people receiving medical consultations and 300,000 people receiving antibiotics prescriptions.
It also reviewed that an estimated 70 per cent of diarrheal episodes in developing countries were associated with the ingestion of contaminated foods (WHO, 2008).
Director of Research and Head of Food Technology Department, Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO), Dr. Oluwatoyin Oluwole, said given the extremely perishable nature of most food products at harvest (fruits and vegetables, after harvest, for instance contain high moisture content and physiological activities, including respiration, as well as the traditional harvesting methods often employed such as fruits and vegetables,” they are often subjected to many risk factors, which often predispose them to rapid deterioration, spoilage induced by chance contaminating pathogenic organisms.”
“Consequently, there arise some urgent needs to prevent food-borne diseases and deaths in which food handlers and processors are the major actors. Food handlers, from the farm gate, need to be taught the importance of good hygienic practices, including high level of sustainable hygiene of contact surfaces, especially the storage containers used for moving the produce from one point to another.”
SOurce: Guardian.ng