According to the Health Ministry, since the beginning of 2024, there have been several cases of food poisoning nationwide, some of which are so serious that many victims have had to be hospitalized.
Preliminary investigations show that the reasons of most cases come from food ingredients like chicken, pork, seafood, vegetables, and fruits that were either processed domestically or imported.
These items are under the management of the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry as stipulated in Article 38 of Decree No.15/2018/ND-CP, issued by the Government on February 2, 2018 about implementing a number of articles in the Food Safety Law.
In order to prevent similar cases in the future and increase the effectiveness of food safety maintenance, food poisoning prevention in the community, the Central Interdisciplinary Steering Committee on Food Safety asked that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development direct its member units to tighten the control over all types of food ingredients, be they processed in the country or imported from others.
The agriculture sector must actively cooperate with bodies from the health sector to trace the origin of food ingredients when a case of food poisoning is reported.
Meanwhile, the agriculture sector is also proposed to increase its inspections of facilities which process or trade food ingredients coming from inside and outside the country. If a food safety law violation is detected, there must be severe punishments.
Simultaneously, more propaganda about the risks of food poisoning and methods to prevent it should be launched, aiming at facilities to process or trade food ingredients and foods originating from domestic and imported animals and plants.
