Online meeting to ensure food safety

On the afternoon of April 14, the Steering Committee for Food Safety and Hygiene of Nghe An province participated in an online meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan.

Along with the whole country, in 2010, Nghe An paid attention to activities to ensure food safety and hygiene, from propaganda, inspection, granting of certificates of food safety and hygiene, announcing food standards and advertising products, building model points as well as monitoring and investigating food poisoning cases. The whole province inspected more than 16,000 establishments, of which more than 3,000 establishments violated; announced standards for 63 new products, and extended the validity of 19 products in circulation on the market. In 2010, Nghe An had 9 cases, 155 people were poisoned by food, including 2 deaths.

At the conference, departments, branches and localities presented lessons learned and difficulties in ensuring food safety and hygiene. Nghe An province also proposed goals and solutions to ensure food safety and hygiene in the coming time. In particular, focusing on promoting the diversification of communication forms; coordinating with other branches to strengthen inspection and examination work; organizing training courses for cadres at all levels; building a pilot model on food safety and hygiene, striving to achieve the goal in 2011 of reducing the rate of food poisoning to below 6/100,000 people, reducing the number of deaths due to food poisoning by 30%.

On behalf of the Central Steering Committee, the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledged the progress in inspection, propaganda, and handling of establishments violating food safety and hygiene; commended 23 provinces and cities that have reported on the results of food safety implementation according to 10 criteria. The Deputy Prime Minister requested relevant departments and sectors to focus on supplementing and perfecting the Food Safety Law; localities need to strengthen propaganda work and soon bring the Food Safety Law into life.

Thuy Vinh