Challenges of Food Control Agency during COVID-19 Pandemic

“On the occasion of upcoming

World Food Safety Day 

on 7^th June 2020”

The world is facing the threats of COVID-19 pandemic, and Nepal is not an exception. The importance of food control system has increased during this pandemic situation. However, all the competent food control authorities in the world have been facing unprecedented challenges to maintain the routine activities during COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, prioritization of the critically important services and temporary suspensions of low-risk control activities must be carried out.

Let’s try to pinpoint some of the major areas of actions:

1.  Cooperation and contingency planning

Competent authorities must have emergency response and contingency planning that includes information management, risk assessment, risk management, risk communication, food incident management, multi-agency collaboration and cooperation mechanism.

2.   Functioning national food safety inspection programme

As a consequence of restricted movement, physical presence of inspectors in the premises may not be feasible. At the same time, the capacity of the food testing laboratories is significantly reduced. Therefore, Food control authority might need to take a different approach than before.

Some of them could be:

a.     Risk based approach

b.    Temporary measures such as

a.  Temporary use of electronic mechanism for receiving application, providing certification and attestation

b.  Electronic submission system for food business operators to report the self control check status

c.  Temporary flexibility in the labeling requirements, if required

d.  Development of rapid alert electronic portal for officials, consumers and food business operators

e.  Arrangements of electronic meetings with all the stakeholders to review the situation and to take immediate actions

f.   Development of mechanism for close collaboration with the private sector and the relevant stakeholders

g.  Proper and timely risk communication

h.  Let’s emphasize that “Food safety is everybody’s responsibility”

  

c.  Staff Protection

Appropriate training related to the procedures to minimize the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 disease) must be provided to all the food inspectors. Food inspectors will need to ensure that they are free from the symptoms of COVID-19; they will need to practice physical distancing while in the food premises, frequent hand washing, including before and after entering the food premises, and good coughing/sneezing etiquette. Food inspectors will also require PPE such as disposable overalls, overshoes, facemasks, gloves, and hairnets, which will need to be changed between inspections.

d.  Temporal suspension of control program

The control programs which do not significantly affect food safety risk to the population may be suspended temporarily. Competent authority should focus work only on food safety. They also have responsibility to share information via global systems such as International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN). Food businesses should be obliged to report to competent authorities when they are aware of receiving or placing unsafe food on the market.

e.  Temporal exceptions in food regulation may also be required

Competent authorities must work closely with the food business operators to assess if temporary adjustments are required to food legislation due to challenges posed by COVID-19. They will need to identify the possible flexibility in technical aspects of food regulation without jeopardizing the food safety risk to the consumers.

3.   Food Laboratories for testing and analysis

Food laboratories with a minimum capacity in microbiological and chemical safety need to be maintained. However, they must introduce measures to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus in the laboratory environment, such as training laboratory workers to recognize symptoms of COVID-19, following physical distancing principles, frequent hand washing and sanitizing and disinfection, and coughing/sneezing etiquette. Laboratory staff should familiarize themselves with the bio-safety guidance related to COVID-19.

4.  Risk to the integrity of the food supply

Due to the disruption in the food supply chains with some food products and ingredients, there is higher risk of incidence of food frauds. Therefore, competent authority should work closely with both importers and manufacturers to investigate the food supply chain and proper food safety and quality management system.

Because of being confined within the homes, there are increasing number of e-commerce and online food retailing practices. This will further increase the risk of food fraudulence activities. Therefore, competent authorities must strengthen food control mechanism in the online sales.

5.  Communication

Because of rapid evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, general population and consumers have started panicking. They have started making false assumptions and predictions regarding the risk of transmission of virus from the food. There are already some incidences to prove such scenario. It’s the responsibility of competent authority to provide accurate, timely and credible information to local and provincial government, food business operators and wider public. The competent authority must have a robust communication strategy to prevent rumors and misinformation.

It is important for the competent authorities to reiterate to the public that while there are no reported cases of COVID-19 transmitted through the consumption of food and that it is very unlikely for COVID-19 to be transmitted through food, hygiene recommendations provided by health authorities to avoid the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 should also be applied by consumers when shopping or handling food.

Competent authority should also provide proper advice to the food business operators regarding transmission mechanism and the approaches to protect the workers. They must develop specific guidelines for different food business such as food industries, food service sectors etc. As understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, competent authorities will need to review and update their messaging accordingly.

In addition, it is important to ensure that relevant Ministries are continuously briefed on the situation to facilitate the crisis management. It’s a time for competent authority to prove that their work is devoted for the prevention of public health. The need for cooperation between public health and food safety authorities has never been more urgent in the past.

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NOTE:

This is personal opinion of the author and it does not indicate official view. The article is written based on both the author’s opinion and WHO interim guidance (WHO/2019-nCoV/Food_Safety_authorities/2020.1). You are free to agree or disagree with my opinion. The author welcomes positive feedback from the readers.