A meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) was held on a virtual online platform from 26 October – 6 November 2020, with an additional day for approval of the report on 24 November 2020. The purpose of the meeting was to evaluate the acceptability of certain substances as previous cargoes and the safety of certain food contaminants. The present meeting was the 90th in a series of similar meetings.

Technical consultation meetings on developing a communication toolkit about food biotechnologies were convened in 2020. At the first of the meetings, held on 11 and 12 June 2020, experts presented communications good practices and lessons learned from efforts to communicate information related to food biotechnologies to the general public at national and regional levels. The points raised were to be included in the toolkit as elements of effective communication from the design phase of the communication strategy to producing and disseminating communication products, as well as evaluating the communication efforts.

Between March and April 2019, many cases of suspected food poisoning were reported by health care workers in the Karamoja region of the Republic of Uganda. Consumption of food products that had high levels of tropane alkaloids was identified as the cause. This group of compounds occur in several plant genera that belong to the Solanaceae family and can contaminate staples like cereals and grains. Given the absence of international guidance and regulations, a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on Tropane Alkaloids was convened remotely between 30 March – 3 April 2020. This publication captures the discussions of the expert meeting and provides risks assessments of tropane alkaloids (hyoscyamine and scopolamine) as well as recommendations outlining appropriate risk management options.

Human trichinellosis is caused by the consumption of raw or inadequately treated meat from domestic or game animals containing the larvae of parasites of the Trichinella species. Taenia saginata causes bovine cysticercosis, a parasitic disease of cattle, by the larval stage (Cysticercus bovis) of the human tapeworm Taenia saginata. Taeniosis, infection of humans with the adult tapeworm, ocurrs following consumption of beef with cysticerci that has not been sufficiently heated or frozen to kill the parasite. This report provides the spreadsheet models resulted in effective generation of the quantitative information needed by public health officials when evaluating different postmortem meat hygiene programmes for Trichinella spp. and Taenia saginata in meat. The models enable the development of science-based risk scenarios to assess the...

This white paper aims to provide Northern and Southern Development partners and decision-makers with a better understanding of a) why spillover of disease from wildlife to humans occurs, and why these zoonotic disease outbreaks can spread and become epidemics and pandemics such as COVID-19 and b) what they can do to prevent, detect and respond to future spillover events, with a special focus on priority interventions at the human-wildlife-livestock interfaces. It has been produced as part of the Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme, which will deliver critical lessons on how to prevent, detect and respond to future spillover events with appropriate national and transboundary policies and practices in the context of the SWM partner sites. The SWM Programme is a major...

There has been an increase in reported outbreaks and cases of foodborne disease attributed to pathogenic Vibrio species. As a result, there have been several instances where the presence of pathogenic Vibrio spp. in seafood has led to a disruption in international trade. A number of Vibrio spp. are increasingly being recognized as potential human pathogens. The food safety concerns associated with these microorganisms have led to the need for microbiological risk assessment for their control. This report provides the review of risk assessment of existing tools for V. parahaemolyticus and V. vulnificus in oysters and different bivalve molluscan species, the available information on testing methodology and recommend microbiological methods to monitor the levels of pathogenic Vibrio spp. in seafood and/or...

The objective of this guidance is to provide direction to decision-makers on how to start ranking the public health risk posed by foodborne hazards and/or foods in their countries. The primary focus...

The second UN World Food Safety Day fell amid the extraordinary global moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a day - or, in some cases, a week or more - of ‘masks, microbes and microphones’ that saw initiatives – organized by individuals, families, communities, schools, businesses and government offices – reshaped for a ‘new normal’ that looks set to affect food safety and food systems for the foreseeable future. In this overview of the global celebrations, we take a glimpse at the webinars, videos, press conferences, editorials, contests, social media posts, campaign messages and more that involved millions of people across the world in May and June 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic will have an unprecedented impact on global and regional trade. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), world merchandise trade in 2020 could fall by as much as 32 percent. The current situation is unlike any other food or health crisis in modern times, with simultaneous supply and demand shocks that are global in nature. Labour shortages due to curtailed mobility are affecting all aspects of the food and agriculture supply chains, from production, to processing and retailing, leading to both immediate and longer-term risks for food production and availability.     At the same time, the significant scale of the economic recession, amid widespread job losses and reductions in income and remittances is raising serious concerns about hunger and...

The purpose of this document is to serve as a functional reference guide for members of the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN). The guide is split into two parts covering both organizational and practical information about INFOSAN and member participation. Part A of the guide provides a general overview of the INFOSAN structure, including services for INFOSAN members, and it details the Network organisation, including the roles and responsibilities of the members, the Secretariat and the Advisory Group. Part B of the guide describes operational aspects around the communication of international food safety incidents (the main function of INFOSAN). Sources of information are described along with guidance on the process for reporting food safety incidents to the INFOSAN Secretariat....