Food Safety Training for Directors of Secondary Schools
17 January, 2013- Ulaanbaatar- The Food Safety Training for Directors of Secondary Schools was organized by WHO and MOH. Foodborne diseases and food contamination constitute a growing public health concern as international trade in food continues to expand. In recent years several issues have been generated media and consumer attention in Mongolia including infant formula contaminated with melamine, benzopyrene in instant noodle and food poisoning during school lunch/tea programme. Sixty per cent of foodborne diseases have been occurred during lunch programme of primary schools and organized meals for special occasion such as party, celebration and meeting in Mongolia.
Western Pacific Regional Strategy for Food Safety was endorsed in 2011 to further improve national food control systems to effectively protect public health, prevent fraud, and facilitate safe and healthy food. One of the most important strategic directions is to improve effective food safety training and education system including behaviour change of children.
In the framework of the Regional Strategy for food safety, WHO has been providing support to Ministry of Health to develop training and advocacy programmes on food safety for school director, managers and medical doctors. Today’s training is focused on 5 keys on food safety and integration of food safety issues into healthy school and nutrition programmes for children in Mongolia. Participants shared their ideas with researcher of Nutrition Center, National Center for Public Health, food safety and government officer on how to improve food safety issues at secondary schools and put their inputs in draft guideline for food safety of school lunch/tea programme for primary school children.
Follow up training on food safety will be held on 21-23 for school managers and medical doctors at the National Center for Public Health. Awareness raising activities on food safety will be organized at selected schools in next few months.
