FAO has issued a new guidance document to highlight additional measures that food businesses and the authorities regulating the sector can take to protect workers from person-to-person spread of COVID-19. The updated guidelines are to help ensure that the integrity of the food chain is maintained and adequate and safe food supplies are available for consumers. While COVID-19 may pose an occupational safety risk for workers in any type of business or industry where individuals work in close proximity to one another, SARS-CoV-2 itself is not considered a direct food safety hazard. Updated with new evidence, this FAO guidance replaces the...

Today FAO and the Republic of Korea signed a Framework Arrangement to collaborate on food safety, starting with a USD 10 million project that will support the implementation and monitoring of Codex standards aimed at strengthening agri-food systems by reducing foodborne antimicrobial resistance (AMR). A Member of the Codex Alimentarius Commission since 1971, the Republic of Korea has been monitoring foodborne AMR at national level since 2003 and has long held a leading role within Codex on AMR-related work. The Republic of Korea has served as Chair of the Codex ad hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance (TFAMR) from...

Ahead of the Food Systems Summit, FAO is holding a series of knowledge sessions to facilitate navigating the information resources the Organization makes available. FAO publications are open access, often produced in different languages and formats. The sessions will cover how to find materials, how you can re-use them, sign up for the latest releases and more. The first of the five sessions will focus on food security, food safety and nutrition – in line with Action Track 1 of the Food Systems Summit, which is about ‘Ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all’. Each session will...

On 7 and 8 July 2021, the National Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Mali launched a new food safety project that will promote the use of Codex Alimentarius standards and codes of practice in the smoked fish sector, in particular, and its potential spillover effects to other value chains, such as grilled/smoked meat and oilseeds will be documented. The three-year project (Promotion of Codex standards and codes of practice in the smoked fish sector and consequences on food safety in other sectors in Mali) will be implemented by FAO starting in 2021. The project - funded by the...

Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) has been effectively used in the field of food safety, and yet it is still a challenge for low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) to fully benefit from it. Among the key issues, it is essential that policy-makers are aware of the usefulness of this technology. In June 2021, FAO contributed a technical article entitled “A Silver Lining of the Pandemic: Whole-Genome Sequencing and Food Safety – The benefits of whole-genome sequencing are far ranging” to a Food Safety Magazine. The article highlights the usefulness of WGS in outbreak investigations and discusses in-depth the importance...

While COVID-19 is not transmitted via food, the virus that causes the disease can be transmitted from person to person and affect producers, processors and distributors while at work, unless suitable precautionary measures are taken. An FAO-led webinar today focused on what measures to use to protect the health of those working along the food supply chain. ‘Getting MAD’ is the solution proposed by FAO Food Safety Officer Jeffrey LeJeune, who explained in an opening presentation that the acronym stands for: Masks, Air and Distance. “Face masks effectively lower the probabilty of COVID transmission in...

Food production, marketing and distribution are essential services. However, with the worrying number of incidents emerging where markets and processing facilities became “hubs of COVID-19 infection”, there is growing concern about the potential impacts of COVID-19 and related containment efforts on food security and livelihoods, especially in contexts of high vulnerability and where populations are already experiencing food crises. Under a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) to support COVID-19 awareness-raising and sensitization campaigns among food chain workers, three FAO publications, including a policy brief on food safety (scroll down...

An emerging foodborne hazard has been detected in several countries in Southeast Asia, prompting FAO to publish a risk profile document. As only little is known and the list of uncertainties and identified data gaps is extensive, a proper risk assessment is not yet possible without sufficient and validated data-sets.  It started in 2015, when at least 146 people got sick by eating raw freshwater fish in Singapore. Some experienced severe consequences, as some had to lose their arms and legs. The illness was later linked to a bacterium called Streptococcus agalactiae, also referred to as Group B Streptococcus (GBS) and...

Institutions, organizations and individuals all over the globe held initiatives for World Food Safety Day yesterday (7 June) and on different days in June. To see write-ups and photos, please visit www.fao.org/world-food-safety-day. A report is under preparation. To submit news and photos, please contact: [email protected] Read about the event that FAO, WHO and Codex hosted here on the World Food Safety Day site  and on the FAO site  The 2021 campaign assets will continue to be available here and on the Trello board. Thank you for your participation in and promotion of #WorldFoodSafetyDay

As the world celebrates World Food Safety Day, the Joint FAO/WHO Scientific Advice Programme is publishing Microbiological Risk Assessment Guidance for Food. In line with the slogan for the day, 'Food safety is everyone’s business', this guidance, developed with experts in the field, is intended for use by all those with a role in microbiological food safety – by governments and competent authorities to develop the assessments that underpin policy and decision making, by academia as a reference and teaching materials, and by the private sector for improving food safety management systems. Microbiological hazards include dangerous bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses such as Salmonella, E. coli, Aspergillus, Cyclospora and norovirus. When food is...