As part of this year’s World Food Safety Day celebrations, the World Health Organization (WHO), together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), hosted a social media live Question-and-Answer (Q&A) event for the public on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. WHO Scientist, Simone Moraes Raszl, and Jeffrey LeJeune, FAO Food Safety Officer, discussed key facts about food safety and debunked some popular myths on Monday, 6 June 2022. The event was moderated by WHO Communications officer Yanawit Dechpanyawat.

 “Safe food is essential to human health and well-being. Globally, 1 in 10 people are affected by foodborne diseases annually. Foodborne diseases range from mild to very serious and can even lead to death. We need to engage everyone: governments, industry, civil society, also consumers to know more about this important issue”, noted Raszl on the importance of the World Food Safety Day.

The experts presented this year’s slogan “Safer food, better health”, where each person has a role to play – whether you grow, process, transport, store, sell, buy, prepare or serve food.

LeJeune, emphasized that food safety is everyone’s business: “Every day is a food safety day, we need to make sure that food is safe each day. We want to make sure that food does not cause any illness. It has health, and trade implications. Everyone involved at the various stages has a responsibility to keep food safe”.

The experts also discussed some of the major foodborne illnesses and causes, and impacts on health of both adults and children.

“We have over 200 diseases that can be caused by food, especially, it affects the most vulnerable groups like children, elderly, people with health conditions, people living in poverty“, said Raszl,.

Viewers writing in on Facebook and Twitter wanted to know how to keep the food safe. For example, if it is good to eat food within five minutes when this is dropped on the floor, what to consider while checking the expiration date, and whether antimicrobial resistance is a food safety issue. The experts also mentioned the newly adopted WHO Global Strategy for Food Safety 2022-2030 as well as the upcoming FAO Priorities for Food Safety and the importance of food standards adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

Every year, 600 million people fall sick as a result of different types of foodborne illnesses. The burden of such illness falls most heavily on the poor and on the young. In addition, foodborne illness is responsible for 420 000 preventable deaths every year.

Watch again on twitter: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1533795937566355456