The workshop organised by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in collaboration with the FAO was aimed at improving the preparedness and response of officers to food safety emergencies throughout all districts in Ghana.
It also aimed at training the core team for the implementation of the food safety event surveillance and response in health facilities, improving the knowledge of the periphery level disease surveillance team on foodborne disease surveillance, and building the capacity of staff to effectively detect and respond to foodborne disease outbreaks.

Mr Roderick Kwabena Daddey-Adjei, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Food Division, FDA, said the implementation of the Food Safety Emergency Response Plan (FOSERP) and the integration of foodborne disease surveillance into the National Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) System had improved its coverage and response in Ghana.
He said the existence of an effective collaboration, and a resilient food safety emergency response plan was critical to the achievement of a national operational plan that addressed the full spectrum of natural and technological hazards and bioterrorist threats along the food chain.

"According to the World Health Organization, the number of reported cases of food and waterborne diseases worldwide has risen significantly over the past half a century and were in the process of estimating global foodborne disease incidence, mortality and disease burden in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) by 2025."

Mr Daddey-Adjei said to ensure Ghana's full participation in this process, there was a need to improve the capacities of surveillance and response officers for effective and efficient foodborne disease surveillance and reporting in Ghana.

This, he said, would help bring uniformity in reporting and data interpretation with less or no discrepancies.

"The FDA with support from the FAO, has engaged various stakeholders to draft and validate a food safety event surveillance manual, which will be used in training to ensure continuous capacity building for an efficient surveillance and response system with no variance at the various levels regarding surveillance and response activities."

He said "We hope to create food safety systems that can identify, report, and mitigate foodborne diseases effectively. As we train to train other cadre of health professionals across the districts it is our collective effort to build a robust framework for food safety and safeguard public health and safety."

Dr Akosua Owusu-Sarpong, Regional Director, Ghana Health Service, said, "Foodborne diseases kill and can cause serious injuries and disability, therefore the need to quickly report on it. We can also investigate and determine what the contaminants of the food are to prevent future contamination of food systems."
She said as health practitioners, their primary responsibility was to treat individuals affected by foodborne diseases and focus on providing health education and promoting health awareness activities.

Dr. Owusu-Sarpong said there were surveillance systems in place capable of detecting foodborne diseases early through data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
She advised food vendors to go in for medical checkups yearly and ensure that their food was properly prepared in a hygienic and safe manner.

"Proper storage is essential for food safety. It helps prevent contaminants from entering the food. Maintaining the right conditions can significantly reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses," she added.

Dr Benjamin Adjei, FAO, said, according to the WHO, one in 10 people in the world fall ill after eating contaminated food, about 430,000 die every year and children under five are affected by 40 per cent of this burden.

He said the implementation of the first integration of the Foodborne Disease Surveillance System by the FDA, and the National IDSR System, has improved the coverage of foodborne disease surveillance in Ghana, and the workshop would help address some of these issues.
He however noted that surveillance and response activities varied, depending on the capacities of the sector level undertaking it, adding that methods used were also not uniform, hence making data interpretation difficult with different results.

"This workshop will help us harmonize some of our methodologies and allow us to get rid of the discrepancies that we often are challenged with, and ultimately enhance early detection, reporting, and action to reduce the devastating impacts of foodborne diseases."