WHO: 1.6 Million People Get Sick Every Day Due To Unsafe Food

ILLUSTRATION/Electrician Gaza/DOC UN

JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) says that 1.6 million people fall ill every day for eating unsafe foods and children under 5 years of age bear a 40 percent burden on food congenital diseases.

The statement was made by the Head of WHO Nutrition and Food Safety, Francesco Branca, during a UN press conference in Geneva, reported by ANTARA from Anadolu, Saturday, June 8.

Branca stressed that the dangers of food safety do not recognize the country's borders and in increasingly interconnected global food supplies, the risks posed by unsafe foods can quickly develop from local problems to international emergency problems.

The humanitarian crisis in many parts of the world, he assessed, helped encourage food insecurity and endangered food security.

The official urged the government to ensure that food safety is clear in the national action plan for health security. This includes ensuring that risk communication plans are updated and moving towards an integrated surveillance system for animal health, the environment, and humans.

Similarly, senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Markus Lipp views safe food as fundamental in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs).

Lipp said safe food is also one of the prerequisites for fulfilling FAO's strategic plans to enable better production, nutrition, environment, and life.

Because children under the age of 5 bear the highest burden of food congenital diseases, he assesses that increasing food safety will maintain public health and reduce child mortality.

"When food is produced and traded in a safe and sustainable food farming system, it contributes to healthy life and increases sustainability by enabling market access and productivity, which encourages economic development and poverty alleviation, especially in rural areas," he said.