A colleague at work goes to buy fried yam at lunch time. The vendor after serving the immediate consumer does not wash the hand and attempts to serve my colleague with the same hand with which she used to collect money from the other consumer.
My colleague reminds her to wash her hands before serving her and the vendor flares up. Sadly, fellow consumers rained insults on my colleague. Their beef is that it is the order of the day.
The attitude of handling food anyhow and anyway has become part of the Ghanaian. Only few people occasionally question the manner in which food is handled. Such people often receive all kinds of criticisms from fellow consumers apart from the food vendors.
From the Ghanaian farm through the market to the house and finally to the table, food is not handled well. But as humans we cannot do away with food which is central to our existence.
A walk through the major cities of the country, particularly Accra, reveals all kinds of food being displayed uncovered and open with flies sitting on them.
A situation individuals and health experts like the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Prof. Agyemang Badu-Akorsah has often expressed concern about.
The World Health Organization, (WHO) estimates about 2.2 million deaths are recorded annually from food and water borne diarrhoea diseases.
Statistics from the Greater Accra region indicates that diarrhoea diseases persistently ranked 5th among the 10 top causes of morbidity contributing between 3.6 and 4.2% of out patient attendances over the past 5 years.
Of the top 5 communicable diseases reported, diarrhoea diseases are in the 2nd position. There is microbiological and chemical contamination of food right from the farm to the table.
Many people involved in the cultivation of vegetables especially, often use contaminated water from ponds and drains to water their crops.
A study by the International Water Management Institute on Accra, Kumasi and Tamale in 2004, revealed that all samples of cabbage, lettuce and spring onions contained at least 4000 faecal coli forms per gram being considerably higher for samples from Accra and Tamale.
However, these levels exceeded the International Commission on Microbiological Specification for Food recommended level of weight. Lettuce was the most polluted followed by spring onions.
It is for this that the Ghana Health Service devoted its monthly health promotion programme for the month of June to food safety. The monthly programme aims at educating workers at the ministry and the general public on preventive health.
The decision by the GHS to begin with the ministry community is laudable since courtesy is often said to begin at home. A few months ago, a matron at one of the ministries was ordered to stop serving food because she was caught working on rotten fish, apparently to serve innocent consumers with.
Dr. Edith Clarke, Head of the Occupational Health and Environmental Unit of the Ghana Health Service, (GHS) delivered a talk on the burden of disease from poor food safety practices in Ghana.
She cited poor environmental sanitation and unhygienic handling of food especially among the traditional caterers often known as ‘chop bars’ as alarming.
Most of these ‘chop bars’ she noted have poor drainage and inadequate toilet facilities. She revealed that a study among chop bar operators showed that 20% of them had fungal nail infections, while about 11% had intestinal parasites such as salmonellosis, a typhoid casing bacteria.
Dr. Clarke therefore advised chop bar consumers to examine critically the source of food from such places. She expressed concern over the attitude of some Ghanaians who have resorted to the use of food additives to pig feet, palm oil the famous ‘chofi’ (turkey tail) to make them attractive. ‘‘Even at home people practice poor personal hygiene. They fail to wash their hands with soap after defecation, coughing and sneezing. They are often taken for granted’.
In her opinion, the underlying causes of food related ill-health is complex and so are the interventions to control them. She called for the provision of toilet facilities in both rural and urban areas and intensive education on the need to use them.
For food handlers in institutions such as processing industries and those who serve in public places, measures should be taken to train them on regular updates in food safety practices and called for regular medical screening on them.
With regards to chemical contamination, Dr. Clarke said farmers should be educated on the need to avoid the use of highly toxic pesticides for food crops, fishing and game hunting, for which they have not been approved or licensed in the country.
She said school curricula at all levels should include food safety. ‘‘To be able to achieve lasting results, it is important that sectors like agriculture, Game and Wildlife, Environmental Protection Agency, Metropolitan and District Assemblies and regulatory agencies, all lend a hand to these efforts’ she concluded.
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