The consultation recommended that FAO and WHO should:
Develop guidelines for the collection of data to ensure that the quality of data collected for use in risk assessment is comparable between countries (sampling plans and methods of data analysis).
Encourage reporting of prevalence and concentration of specified hazards at different steps of the full exposure pathway in all regions of the world recognizing that currently most available control data are useless for the purpose of quantitative microbiological risk assessment.
Develop a framework document for guiding the establishment of repositories for food safety data and surveillance data critical for effective risk assessment.
Facilitate the development of surveillance systems with the view to data generation for quantitative microbiological risk assessment and explore ways to further evaluate the importance of [4]food saving systems that have recently been recognized as a useful means of obtaining quantitative data in the case of outbreaks.
Promote the collection of consumption data appropriate for microbiological risk assessment at the national level.
Facilitate dialogue between risk assessors and risk managers to provide feedback on model creation and model documentation to better serve risk managers.
Ensure that requests by risk managers for the development of hazard characterizations or exposure assessments include a clear description of purpose and scope.
Assist member countries in the preparation of project proposals on microbiological risk assessment activities for presentation to potential donors.
Encourage member countries to allow time and funding for members of the drafting group to assist in the development of the risk assessment models, since this has been identified as a limitation concerning some drafting group experts.
Define the terms used in the risk assessment documents in order to ensure consistency in the use of terminology and also to make them clear to all interested parties.
Facilitate direct technical cooperation between developed and developing countries so that they achieve the technical capability required to carry out microbiological risk assessment. This support should take into consideration the local situation in order for the result to be sustainable.
Consider, for future risk assessment activities, the involvement of scientific experts to serve as a standing advisory resource group to the risk assessment drafting group, for the duration of a specific work assignment. This would be a significant complementary activity to the more formal in-person experts meetings and would certainly take greater advantage of the intellectual resources of the expert community through their knowledge of and access to relevant data, references and network of colleagues.
Consider processes to elicit expert judgement in a structured manner, using recognized procedures and protocols to draw out knowledge and opinion and to minimize bias. This will be beneficial in limiting model uncertainty when data are lacking, or when the available data are conflicting, primarily for those parameters which are important determinants for the characterization of risk.
In addition the expert consultation recommended that:
Risk assessment of microbiological hazards in foods be included in the curricula in relevant university courses.
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[4] Food saving systems: A
system whereby all large foodservice establishments are advised to keep frozen
portions of prepared foods for a specified time period for subsequent testing in
the case of illness being associated with the food. |
