By Olimatou Coker
Mamadou Bah , Director General of Food Safety and Quality Authority (FSQA) has said every year the world loses over 6 million people as a result of foodborne illnesses.
DG Bah made these remarks during an interview with The Standard ahead of World Food Safety Day.
“We also have a huge disease burden and that causes productivity, loss of productivity, close to billions of dollars for the African continent. So therefore, raising awareness is free. important, but we don’t just raise awareness, we’ll also advocate for political commitment in terms of political will, and support, but also committing resources to the work of food safety. So these are some of the things that we do. And that’s the objective of this day. And it’s also to bring partners together under one umbrella to discuss food safety issues, and to advocate together and to sensitize together”.
He added that this year’s celebration is going to be in Essau NBR and they have this decentralized celebration.
“Last year it was in Farafenni. This year it should have been in Basse initially, but because of some logistic issues we brought it to Essau”.
He said in Essau is the first time they are hosting it there but also they look at hotspots places that are potential risk areas when it comes to food safety.
He said the theme for this year’s celebration is prredict the unexpected”, “and we have seen a lot of emergencies that are related to food, epidemics, some even pandemics that are related to food.”
