Tainted food kills 420,000
people a year, the Food and Agriculture Organization said
Tuesday.
Food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins
or chemicals causes more than 600 million people to fall ill and
420, 000 to die worldwide every year, according to a report from
the opening session of the First International Food Safety
Conference, in Addis Ababa, organized by the African Union (AU),
the FAO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade
Organization (WTO).
Illness linked to unsafe food overloads healthcare systems
and damages economies, trade and tourism, the report said.
The impact of unsafe food costs low- and middle-income
economies around $95 billion in lost productivity each year.
Because of these threats, the report said, food safety must
be a "paramount goal" at every stage of the food chain, from
production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution,
preparation and consumption, conference participants stressed.
photo: FAO chief José Graziano Da Silva
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