The FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) will hold a webinar for its Members, to celebrate World Food Safety Day and its theme “Food standards save lives”. The event will highlight the role of Codex standards in the international food trade and their importance in preventing and addressing food safety emergencies. It will also discuss how INFOSAN’s work and effective communication with food safety competent authorities could be further adapted to new challenges for agrifood systems and further developed using lessons learnt from international food safety emergencies.

The 90-minute event, moderated by Dr Moez Sanaa, Unit Head on Standards and Scientific Advice on Food and Nutrition at WHO, will include speeches on a number of topics, followed by a question-and-answer session. The key issues that will be addressed are:

• Why does it matter to have an international Codex standard for the exchange of information in food safety emergencies?
• How are international standards assisting the INFOSAN Secretariat in contributing to international response to food safety emergencies?
• What is the perception of INFOSAN members  on the impact of international Codex guidelines for response to food safety emergencies and role of INFOSAN?
• What are the perceived gaps and thoughts for further Codex work to enhance the effectiveness of international response to food safety emergencies and INFOSAN contribution to that.

Dr Eleonora Dupouy, Food Safety Officer at FAO's Headquarter, will speak on “Building resilience of agrifood systems with Codex standards and INFOSAN”, followed by the Codex Vice-chairperson, Diego Varela, who will present “Codex: Guidelines on food safety emergency situations”. Christiane Wolff of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will give a presentation on food safety information sharing and international trade and Dr Marion Gottschald from the German Federal Institute For Risk Assessment (BfR) will speak about “The role of science in international food safety standards”.

Thereafter, a regional perspective will be offered by Dr Nailya Karsybekova, former Codex Regional Coordinator for Europe and Central Asia and a national perspective will come from Qatar, Near East region, by Ms Wasan Al Baker, Food Safety & Environmental Health Manager at the Public Health Department.

The webinar will be held in English.

More about INFOSAN on:
https://www.who.int/groups/international-food-safety-authorities-network-infosan
https://www.fao.org/food-safety/emergencies/infosan/en/