The Coordinating Committee for Asia was established at the 11th Meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission held in Rome, Italy, in July 1976. Its first meeting was held in New Delhi (India) in January 1977.
The regional coordinator operates from within the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment.
China’s main priorities as coordinator include enhancing participation in Codex meetings, supporting the prioritization of Codex work in the region, improving harmonization of food safety standards and accelerating the revitalization of the coordinating committee by sharing information and providing regular updates on food safety issues within the region.
China also wishes to promote collaboration with observer organizations and improve efficient and effective communication between regional members FAO, WHO, and the Codex Secretariat.
The World Health Organization (WHO) supported Timor-Leste in their application to the FAO/WHO Codex Trust Fund Project. The application was approved in 2021 and a Codex orientation workshop was planned as part of the project. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WHO facilitated this workshop in Baucau city from 13-15 July.
Since language is an issue, presentations were translated into Tetun in advance. The workshop was addressed by Odete da Silva Viegas, Director General for Health [...]
The new AMR Codex Texts (ACT) project “Implementation of Codex standards to support containment and reduction of foodborne antimicrobial resistance” now has a national project coordinator in Pakistan to lead activities in the country, Dr. Farooq Tahir.
“Pakistan is a country of about 220 million people and has an agro livestock-based economy, where 40 percent of the population is directly or indirectly engaged with livestock farming. Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is an emerging public health challenge, not only globally but also locally, with [...]
As part of the new AMR Codex Texts (ACT) project, laboratory experts from FAO led a mission in June 2022 to assess the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance system in Mongolia. In addition, the mission also engaged stakeholders from the food and agriculture sectors to raise their awareness of foodborne AMR.
“The aim of this mission was to assess the ability of the national laboratories to detect AMR in the food and agriculture sectors. The assessment considered activities related to data collection [...]
World Food Safety Day was celebrated in Cambodia on 30 June, in an event jointly organized by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly, Chairman of the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Ministry [...]
Mongolia is one of the first countries to start assessing their national antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance system in the food and agriculture sectors. This is part of the new AMR Codex Texts (ACT) project. The project was highlighted on three national TV networks as prime-time news.
“We trained 25 specialists from eight laboratories, we also conducted a workshop on the ATLASS tool with more than 100 stakeholders, assessed one regional laboratory, conducted a workshop to introduce the findings along with recommendations [...]
WHO Maldives supported the Maldives Food and Drug Authority to conduct a Virtual Run to raise awareness on Food Safety and Physical Activity on the occasion of World Food Safety Day 2022. The run started off on the 7th of June 2022 on the Food Safety Day, continued on for 2 weeks with a total of 1000 registered runners from across the country. The closing of the run was attended by state ministers, DGHS, WHO team and the public which was [...]
For World Food Safety Day this year, the Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority (BAFRA), under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests published information about the Day in national newspapers and on social media to raise awareness, with the reminder that “Only when we work together can we achieve safer food for better health.”
The information explains this year’s World Food Safety Day theme, outlines the key messages and provides some facts & figures about foodborne disease. This was an opportunity to [...]
In conjunction with the 2022 World Food Safety Day (WFSD), Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) through the Food Safety and Quality Division (FSQD) together with the Malaysia Food Safety Association (MAFSA) collaborated with food delivery service companies (p-hailing) to increase food safety awareness, especially food purchase online. During the WFSD2022 launching event, over 40 food delivery riders from various p-hailing company were flagged off to carry the WFSD2022 messages “Safer Food, Better Health” to consumers. The collaboration also aimed to [...]
Food can be contaminated by pathogens, hazardous chemicals or through unsafe human practices that are known as adulterations. Unsafe food is accounted for more than 200 diseases around the world. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 600 million – _or 1 in 10 people in the world – _fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420 000 die every year. Timor Leste stands in a peculiar place when it comes to food safety. The nation has no food [...]
Students at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) have set about educating people about food safety by producing leaflets and videos for World Food Safety Day.
They produced two videos. In the first, they tested attitudes to food safety among young people in a food market, asking questions such as “Have you ever paid attention to the information on food packaging?”, “Do you know the meaning of the triangles and squares on plastic packaging?” and “Do you think food [...]