The Action Month for Food Safety this year happens nationwide from April 15 to May 15, themed ‘Maintaining Food Security and Safety in the New Context’. Its major aim is to improve the awareness and responsibility of the whole political system and the community for this matter.
Food safety has always attracted much attention of the Party, the State, ministries, and functional agencies, leading to certain fruitful results. However, there are still inadequacies that need addressing.
Statistics from the Health Ministry reveal that in 2023, 125 cases of food poisoning happened, killing 28 victims among 2,100 patients. In the first quarter of this year, 659 people in 16 cases of food poisoning were reported (tripling the figure of this time last year), including three deaths.
Obviously, food safety has been rather complicated, especially when people have a tendency to use social network platforms for food trading activities. Many food items advertised on social network sites have no clear origin, or even fake and smuggled ones. These goods can have harmful effects on consumers’ health.
The management of this matter is too loose due to inadequate or overlapping regulations. Those ineffective legal documents have unwantedly created vulnerabilities for ill-intention people to take advantage of and earn more profit.
In addition, the human resources to carry out food safety checks are insufficient. Therefore, they have done their task seasonally and could only detect a small number of violations.
During this Action Month, the Central Interdisciplinary Steering Committee on Food Hygiene and Safety asks that all localities develop strategies and plans that suit their own context to ensure food safety and prevent food poisoning, particularly from April to August.
What is more concerned is a diversity of food addictive and food chemicals on the market with uncontrollable quality. This means relevant ministries and functional agencies have to work with the local authorities to improve their professional skills in managing them to maintain food safety.
Also, the authorities must frequently check and strictly punish law breakers in this field. Information on these offenders has to be publicly posted on the mass media. Propaganda activities must be done to raise the awareness of the public about wisely selecting food for consumption and fighting against dirty food or law violations on this matter.
