Future leaders programme focuses session on food safety and foodborne AMR
Jorge Pinto Ferreira, FAO Food Safety Officer, spoke about the interconnections between antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and food safety at the “Future Leaders Against AMR” on 25 February. This international programme for students and early career professionals is designed to support their development as future leaders in the work against AMR.
In his presentation, Pinto Ferreira explained the difference between antimicrobial residues and resistance, “By resistance, in simple terms, we mean the capacity of, for example, bacteria to be able to survive after a treatment with an antibiotic that used to be able to kill it,” he said. “While residues are usually what remains in a food item after, for example, an antibiotic treatment. This can be of particular food safety concern, when the recommended withdrawal time period is not respected.”
Pinto Ferreira also emphasized that there is no food security, without food safety.
The session he spoke at is part of a programme that includes relevant career guidance for participants, exploring the many fields relevant to the issue through lectures and panels with experts, soft-skills training, small project management and mentorship by current professionals. The ten-week programme has been taking place virtually since the beginning of 2022. Participant applications closed in December 2021, with priority given to 40 young people from LMIC and academic/professional backgrounds not typically associated with AMR.
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