The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the incidence of diarrhea disease caused by consumption food and water is estimated at 3.3 to 4.1 episodes per child per year.

Speaking here at the opening of the First Regional Conference on Food Safety for Africa, N. Mwikisa, director of the Division of Health Environments and Sustainable Development WHO Regional office for Africa, said the total mortality due to diarrhea is around 700,000 for all age groups in Africa and several devastating outbreaks of food borne diseases such as cholera, salmonellosis, entero-haemorrhagic Escherichia coli, hepatitis A and acute aflatoxicosis have occurred in a number of African countries recently.

He said outbreaks of cholera in 2004 in 28 countries resulted in 85,807 cases and 2,221 deaths. In 2005, reports from 30 countries indicated that so far 33,934 cases and 1,161 deaths have occurred.

An outbreak of acute aflatoxicosis reported 317 cases and 125 deaths in Kenya last year. Another outbreak reported a further 74 reported cases and 28 deaths in 2005.

He said in addition to death and ill health, food borne diseases have profound economic consequences.

The economic cost in food replacement during the 2004 outbreak of acute aflatoxicosis in Kenya was 166,000 metric tones of safe food for 1.8 million people over six months, he said.

In 1997, a ban imposed on Ugandan fish exports to the European Union markets that resulted in losses amounting to 36.9 million US dollars. A cholera outbreak in Tanzania in 1998 cost about 36 million dollars in lost revenue.

In recent years, African consumers were seeing changes in the way food is produced and processed that impact on safety, he said.

Mwikisa said there was a shift from eating home-prepared food to consumption of ready-to eat foods, which were often sold as street foods in many African countries.

Street food vendors provide essential service to workers, shoppers, travelers, school children and people on low incomes.

He added that the hygiene aspects of vending operations were a major source of concern for food control officers as street wended foods were often associated with frequent food poisoning.

He said WHO in consultation with its member states developed a Global Strategy for Food Safety, which provides guidance to WHO and countries' activity in this area.

Mwikisa said that WHO would continue to build capacity and strengthen Public Health Laboratories to enable them carry out these activities effectively and efficiently as components of Regional and National Integrated Disease Surveillance.

WHO would continue to provide support for the revision of food laws and legislation, implementation of Codex standards, effective participation in the work of Codex Alimentary and preparation of national action plans, said Mwikisa.

High ranking policy officers and technical experts from 47 African countries and five international organizations as observers are attending the conference.

Source: Xinhua