The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), in collaboration with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), announced the launch of the monitoring and surveillance program to control food pollutants and pathogens during the initial stages of production and processing and throughout the food chain, as part of the multisectoral one health approach.
The program aims to monitor pathogens to prevent their transmission to humans through the intake of contaminated foods.
Wassan Abdulla Al-Baker, Director of Food Safety and Environmental Health, MoPH, said that the program has been developed to better understand human-to-animal diseases and identify any gaps to prevent the contamination of food products along the food chain, noting that its framework contributes to involving local farms and state abattoirs in the development of specific strategies to address and control biological and chemical hazards and the identification of indicators to measure those risk levels in accordance with international best practices.
She added that the program includes several key activities, including conducting surveys and surveys to collect the necessary information for monitoring and control, which will provide scientific data to assess risks and formulate food control strategies in the State of Qatar.
Al-Baker noted that various workshops and training programs will be organized in the field of biosecurity, cleaning and disinfection procedures and monitoring of critical control points in the abattoirs, as well as assisting in the development of food safety risk management plans and detailed corrective plans in local farms and following up their procedures.
Eng. Abdulaziz Mahmoud Al-Ziyara, Director of the Livestock Department, MME, has stated that the program complements the efforts of the State of Qatar to ensure food free of pollutants and pathogens to all its people as it has made great strides in this regard in the past period. Al-Ziyara lauded the cooperation between the MoPH and MME, which includes many important areas that contribute to the implementation of the Ministries' strategic plans and objectives, supporting future action to reduce health risks of food origin and achieving the objectives of the Qatar Vision on food security and the provision of safe food for the population. He added that the program also contributes to strengthening the research capabilities and partnership of government sectors with universities and local and international academic centers to address data gaps and develop new methods to guide the policy of controlling pathogenic pollutants in food products. It also helps establish regulatory policies for food products and identify serotypes of pathogenic bacteria and predatory agents that pose a potential health risk.
The Ministry of Public Health is working in collaboration with the relevant governmental partners to ensure that food products access markets in a manner that ensures their health and sustainability by building the capacity of local farms to manage health risks, as well as improving the investment environment to keep the local product competitive in the market.
Source: Ministry of Public Health