Food safety in a globalized world

Editorials 212 Access to sufficient safe food is a basic requirement for human health. Ensuring food safety and security in a highly globalized world presents increasingly difficult, and often under-appreciated challenges, for governments, commercial organizations and individuals alike. The risks of unsafe food are substantial , but can be difficult to quantify. Diarrhoeal diseases – both foodborne and waterborne – kill an estimated two million people annually, including many children in developing countries. Food contaminants, such as harmful parasites, bacteria, viruses, prions, chemical or radioactive substances, cause more than 200 diseases – ranging from infectious diseases to cancers. 3 In parallel with the increasing size of the world population, consumer demand for a wider variety of foods is growing, entailing a longer and more complex food-chain. In this context, for the World Health Day, on 7 April 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) has chosen to focus on food safety. Today, food ingredients often come from multiple countries, with each item having travelled thousands of kilometres from a field, farm or factory. Contamination at one end of the food-chain can affect populations on the other side of the world. Given the interaction of multiple actors separated by vast distances and potentially delayed impacts, multisectoral and international cooperation is essential. Food safety needs strengthening in many countries – but no country can do this alone. World Health Day is one of a series of actions that WHO is taking to raise awareness about the food safety agenda and to galvanize action. WHO, in collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has had a central international role in developing guidelines to strengthen and harmonize food systems, in particular through the jointly managed Codex Alimentarius Commission. Codex standards have become the de facto international standards for food safety. WHO and FAO also manage the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN), which provides timely information during food safety emergencies 4 and assists countries in building strong systems to prevent such incidents. WHO has also established the Global Foodborne Infections Network 5 to promote integrated, laboratory-based surveillance and foster multisectoral collaboration. In 2010, the 63rd World Health Assembly adopted a resolution to advance food safety. 6 As a result, a strategic plan was developed which requires WHO to: (i) provide the evidence base for measures to decrease foodborne health risks along the entire food-chain; (ii) improve international and national cross-sectoral collaboration, including …