Nations Reach Consensus On Food Safety
By Azaraimy HH

Bandar Seri Begawan - More than 600 delegates from around the world reached a consensus on food safety in Beijing on Tuesday.

According to a press release from the Ministry of Health, delegates from more than 40 countries and regions and a dozen international organisations including the World Health Organisation (WHO) jointly published a "Beijing Declaration on Food Safety" after two days of discussions at the High-Level International Food Safety Forum held in Beijing.

They also agreed that developed countries should help developing nations build food safety capacities to ensure safer food for all.

The Beijing Declaration is a joint agreement to raise the global food safety through an exchange of information related to food contamination.

It highlighted the importance of supervision of food safety as an important public health function, and urged all countries to establish competent food safety guidelines within a comprehensive legislative framework.

Realising those food safety standards could be used as a trade barrier, the declaration also stipulates that food safety measures should be based on sound scientific evidence and risk analysis principles and should not create trade barriers.

The document urges all countries to:

• establish procedures, including tracking and recall systems, to rapidly identify, investigate and deal with food-safety incidents.
• inform WHO of emergencies such as the outbreak of mad cow disease.
• set up food and total diet monitoring programmes with linkages to human and food-animal disease surveillance systems to obtain rapid and reliable information on food-borne diseases and hazards in food supply.

The high-level International Food Safety Forum was held November 26 and 27.

Brunei Darussalam was represented by Pehin Dato Paduka Awang Hj Hazair bin Hj Abdullah, the Deputy Minister of Health, and several senior health personnel from the Ministry of Health.  -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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