Tom Heilandt, Codex Secretary, and Professor Yong Ho Park, Chairperson of the Codex Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance, highlighted Codex food standards as panellists in two different sessions of the 2018 International Dairy Federation (IDF) World Dairy Summit in Daejeon, Korea, this week.

“Food is more than just eating, but comfort,” Heilandt said in the keynote speech of the session on food safety. “We tend to take its safety for granted. Food is fragile. That’s why we need to work together to achieve nutritious and safe food,” he urged.

Speakers from around the world discussed the challenges of food safety and regulations, scientific advice to Codex, regional and global standards and the unintended consequences of well-intentioned regulations. They also shared experiences with food crises (for example, the melamine incident in China and the listeria outbreak in South Africa) and discussed what was learned from the food crisis and the role of international standards.

“Deaths from antimicrobial resistance [AMR] could reach 10 million by 2050, which is over the number of deaths from cancer, 8.2 million,” said Park during the session called ‘Management of Antimicrobial Resistance by Countries’. “To combat the spread of AMR through the food chain, Codex is revising the code of practice to minimize and contain antimicrobial resistance and developing a guideline of surveillance of foodborne AMR by 2020,” he said, encouraging delegates to actively participate in Codex standard-setting activities.

“Only use antimicrobials when associated with Good Animal Health Practice” said Elisabeth Erlacher Vindel of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). She also stressed the importance of the prudent and responsible use of antimicrobials.

The Codex Secretary thanked IDF for its long-standing partnership and contributions to Codex. Held every year, the next World Dairy Summit is planned for Istanbul, Turkey in 2019.

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