Food Safety Emergencies Research Articles

Situational deductions and emergency decisions in response to food quality and safety emergencies in food production enterprises

Food quality and safety emergencies pose significant challenges to public health and safety, requiring effective emergency decision-making strategies. However, much scholarly attention has focused on the characteristics, evolutionary mechanism, and operational mechanism of emergencies, but those debates typically overlook the particularity of food production enterprises and the complexity, urgency, and harmfulness of such emergencies. Considering these, we explore the occurrence, development, evolutionary mechanism, and development process of food quality and safety emergencies from the perspective of food production enterprises. Then, taking Coca-Cola's chlorine pollution emergency as an example, we establish a situational deduction model using the Bayesian network. Subsequently, an emergency decision-making system is constructed, and emergency decision schemes are provided. Our findings show that food quality and safety emergencies occur when the entropy value exceeds the system threshold. The implementation of emergency decision-making is a process of energy exchange with the external environment to form a new dissipative structure. Scenario analysis is a cyclic process influenced by the emergency evolution, external environment, and emergency decision-making. Effective emergency decision-making requires a comprehensive analysis of the event situation, rational resource mobilization, and the use of professional knowledge and experience. This study provides a novel approach to understanding and managing food quality and safety emergencies in food production enterprises, emphasizing the need to consider the particularity and complexity of such emergencies when developing decision-making strategies. Our situational deduction model and emergency decision-making system provide a practical tool for enhancing emergency response capabilities, ensuring public health and safety, and maintaining brand image.

Principles and Practices of Effective Food Safety Risk Communication – Introducing the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Food Safety Risk Communication Framework

This paper describes the principles and practices of effective food safety risk communication developed under the “Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Food Safety Risk Communication Framework and Associated Guidelines”. The framework recommends that effective food safety risk communication needs to be centered on the clear goal of protecting consumer health by ensuring transparency and timeliness, and communication on food safety matters should be conducted in a two-way process. It emphasizes the need to provide the public with credible information based on science and evidence and highlights that food safety is a shared responsibility among all stakeholders, including industry, government agencies, media organizations and consumers. It further highlights that food safety risk communication needs to be conducted in a consistent, systematic, inclusive, consultative, and preventative manner. The framework also indicates that effective food safety risk communication needs to pay attention to the backgrounds, experiences, and needs of concerned audiences. It stresses the importance of continuous improvement of the communication system to ensure food safety risk communication to be effective. Focusing on effective communications in response to food safety incidents, emergency or crisis situations, as well as everyday food safety communications, these principles and practical guidelines will help food safety regulators, food industry, food safety educators and other stakeholders improve their communications with target audiences.

Effects of Policy Intervention on Food System Resilience to Emergency Risk Shock: Experience from China during COVID-19 Pandemic.

Achieving the goal of zero hunger within the goal of sustainable development requires improving the resilience of food systems to various types of risk shocks; food systems have shown significant vulnerability to COVID-19 outbreaks and transmission. By analyzing the impact of China's lockdown policy and food security emergency policy in 2020 on food prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, we can clarify the role of policy intervention in enhancing the resilience of the food system, which can provide guidance, using China's experience, for dealing with global food safety emergencies in the future. Firstly, we selected Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong as food-consuming areas, and Shandong, Henan, and Hubei as food-producing areas. We also collected food security emergency policy data from the Chinese government website during the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, a difference-in-difference method was used to observe that Chinese cabbage and pork prices in the main food-producing areas and food-consuming areas rose more obviously after the adoption of lockdown policy, and Chinese cabbage and pork prices in the food-consuming areas increased more obviously than those in food-producing areas. However, staple food prices have not risen significantly. Thirdly, the response of four kinds of food prices to the food security emergency policy is analyzed quantitatively and graphically using the food price volatility index and food price increase rate; we observed that the response of food prices to the food security emergency policy is related to the food types and regions. For food types, the fluctuation degree and increase in Chinese cabbage and pork prices decreased significantly after the adoption of the food security emergency policy. For regions, when the food security emergency policy was adopted, the food prices in the main food-consuming areas fluctuated more obviously than those in food-producing areas. Finally, we found that the implementation of the transport policy and the joint supply emergency policy in the main producing and consuming areas has played a very significant and positive role in stabilizing food prices.

Co-creation and priority setting for applied and implementation research in One Health: Improving capacities in public and animal health systems in Kenya

BackgroundThe Kenyan government has successfully been implementing sector specific and multisectoral projects aligned to the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). For operational readiness and to enhance the effective planning and implementation of Global Health Security Programs (GHSP) at national and subnational level, there is an urgent need for stakeholders' engagement process to seek input in identifying challenges, prioritise activities for field implementation, and identify applied research and development questions, that should be addressed in the next five years. MethodsThe modified Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method was used to identify global health security related priorities for multisectoral implementation in Kenya. Subject matter experts from human, animal and environmental health sectors at national and subnational level contributed to predefined research questions from a number of sources and activities for consideration for implementation using a One Health approach. Sixty-two experts scored the 193 questions based on five pre-defined criteria: 1) feasibility and answerability; 2) potential for burden reduction; 3) potential for a paradigm shift; 4) potential for translation and implementation; and 5) impact on equity. Data resulting from this process was then analysed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to determine the research priorities and experts' agreements. ResultsAmong the priority activities identified for implementation research were; strengthening One Health governance and legal frameworks; integration of ecosystem health into One Health programming; strengthening disease reporting, integrated data collection, information sharing and joint outbreak response; socio-anthropological and gender-based approaches in improving risk and behavioural change communication and community engagement; and one health workforce development. In addition, the potentials to invest in collaborative predictive risk modelling to enhance epidemic intelligence systems, while strengthening the One Health approach in the food safety incident and emergency response plans are feasible. InterpretationSuccessful multisectoral implementation of global health security program in Kenya calls for a whole of society approach that will harness community and private sector knowledge to build preparedness and response capacities while targeting neglected and marginalised populations. This research provides a framework that is worth emulating for cost-effective planning and implementation of overarching One Health programs.

Establishment of the Standard System for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Emergency Response to Food Safety Emergencies: A Delphi Consensus Study

Establishment of the Standard System for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Emergency Response to Food Safety Emergencies: A Delphi Consensus Study

Optimization of Organizational Model of Public Food Safety Emergency Management in China

Optimization of Organizational Model of Public Food Safety Emergency Management in China

Simulation exercises and after action reviews \u2013 analysis of outputs during 2016\u20132019 to strengthen global health emergency preparedness and response

BackgroundUnder the International Health Regulations (2005) [IHR (2005)] Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, after action reviews (AAR) and simulation exercises (SimEx) are two critical components which measure the functionality of a country’s health emergency preparedness and response under a “real-life” event or simulated situation. The objective of this study was to describe the AAR and SimEx supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) globally in 2016–2019.MethodsIn 2016–2019, WHO supported 63 AAR and 117 SimEx, of which 42 (66.7%) AAR reports and 56 (47.9%) SimEx reports were available. We extracted key information from these reports and created two central databases for AAR and SimEx, respectively. We conducted descriptive analysis and linked the findings according to the 13 IHR (2005) core capacities.ResultsAmong the 42 AAR and 56 SimEx available reports, AAR and SimEx were most commonly conducted in the WHO African Region (AAR: n = 32, 76.2%; SimEx: n = 32, 52.5%). The most common public health events reviewed or tested in AAR and SimEx, respectively, were epidemics and pandemics (AAR: n = 38, 90.5%; SimEx: n = 46, 82.1%). For AAR, 10 (76.9%) of the 13 IHR core capacities were reviewed at least once, with no AAR conducted for food safety, chemical events, and radiation emergencies, among the reports available. For SimEx, all 13 (100.0%) IHR capacities were tested at least once. For AAR, the most commonly reviewed IHR core capacities were health services provision (n = 41, 97.6%), risk communication (n = 39, 92.9%), national health emergency framework (n = 39, 92.9%), surveillance (n = 37, 88.1%) and laboratory (n = 35, 83.3%). For SimEx, the most commonly tested IHR core capacity were national health emergency framework (n = 56, 91.1%), followed by risk communication (n = 48, 85.7%), IHR coordination and national IHR focal point functions (n = 45, 80.4%), surveillance (n = 31, 55.4%), and health service provision (n = 29, 51.8%). For AAR, the median timeframe between the end of the event and AAR was 125 days (range = 25–399 days).ConclusionsWHO has recently published guidance for the planning, execution, and follow-up of AAR and SimEx. Through the guidance and the simplified reporting format provided, we hope to see more countries conduct AAR and SimEx and standardization in their methodology, practice, reporting and follow-up.

Looking Inside the International Food Safety Authorities Network Community Website

The International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) was launched in 2004 by the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Since then, this global network has aimed to halt the international spread of contaminated food, prevent foodborne disease outbreaks, and strengthen food safety systems globally to reduce the burden of foodborne illness. However, INFOSAN has never been examined as a functional community of practice and its value, according to members, has not been determined in a systematic or rigorous way. A three-phased, mixed-method study has explored the experiences of INFOSAN members with respect to their participation in collaborative network activities to improve global food safety and prevent foodborne illness. Results from phase 1 of this study are discussed here and relate to how the INFOSAN Community Website (ICW) is being used to support network activities. Overall, the descriptive analysis indicates that a small number of active INFOSAN members contribute most of information shared on the ICW. A much larger group of members participates passively, logging on to the site, reading content, but not sharing new information. Four hundred eighty-two food safety incidents are documented on the ICW, the majority of which have been caused by bacterial contamination, most commonly Salmonella enterica. The results from phase 1 of this study provide objective, foundational information about engagement of all members and were used to propose new ways to improve the ICW. Integration of these results with results from phases 2 and 3 will help determine whether and how members' reported attitudes and experiences reflect their online behaviors. This information can be used by the INFOSAN Secretariat to increase active participation and improve international information exchange to mitigate the impact of food safety emergencies and prevent foodborne diseases globally.

Spatial distribution of COVID-19 importation risk in South Asia against health emergency preparedness capacity and vulnerability

The 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak has become a global security threat that requires both national and regional level preparedness and response mechanism. This study aims to assess the relative risk of importation of COVID-19 against the capacity and vulnerability of South Asian countries, specifically the member countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).Capacity of the South Asian countries to detect and respond to COVID-19 outbreak was determined using the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR) Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. Assessment includes the average scores of the indicators from all capacities, excluding those of the capacities on food safety, chemical events, and radiation emergency. Vulnerability of these countries to such type of disease has been determined by the Infectious Disease Vulnerability Index. Prediction of the risk of case importation is based on the data on volume of air travel departing from airports in top ten COVID-19 infected countries and directed to the countries of South Asia. Number of infected individuals in each of the country included all confirmed cases recorded until March 04, 2020 in order to calculate the relative risk of case importation.The study presents a comparative analysis among the countries based on their risk, capacity and vulnerability. Among the South Asian countries, India, the country with highest importation risk has highest capacity to respond to outbreaks. Afghanistan is the most vulnerable country which has lowest risk of case importation, whereas it has the second lowest capacity. On the other hand, Nepal has the lowest capacity with moderate risk. Bhutan shows no risk of case importation. IHR indicator analysis indicates highest vulnerable countries need to focus more on the improvement of their capacity on health service provision, legislation and financing, risk communication, and points of entry.

Responsiveness to Food Safety Emergencies in Eswatini

Responsiveness to Food Safety Emergencies in Eswatini

The FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network in Review, 2004-2018: Learning from the Past and Looking to the Future.

Contemporary patterns of global food trade necessitate cross-border communication between government authorities when unsafe food enters international commerce. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN), established in 2004, facilitates urgent communication between >600 members from 188 of the 194 FAO and WHO Member States around the world and supports the strengthening of food safety systems in an effort to mitigate the global burden of foodborne disease. For nearly 15 years, INFOSAN has been operating as a global, virtual community of practice (CoP), fostering knowledge transfer and exchange between members, and enabling crucial international communication during food safety emergencies. During this time, a number of important partnerships have been forged, including with other networks like PulseNet International. Complementarity, and cooperation between global networks like INFOSAN and PulseNet is vital to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of global efforts to curb foodborne illness. Since 2011, detailed data related to the patterns of information exchange during 293 food safety emergencies communicated through INFOSAN have been documented systematically. An analysis of these data reveals that a relatively limited number of active members from a select group of Member States contribute the majority of information exchanged through the network. For example, nine (5%) Member States were each involved in 24 or more food safety events communicated through INFOSAN between 2011 and 2017, whereas 123 (65%) Member States were involved in three events or less, including 36 (19%) involved in none. These data also demonstrate that although the overall responsiveness of members during emergencies has improved in recent years, impediments to rapid and efficient information sharing still persist. A number of potential barriers to active participation in INFOSAN have been hypothesized, but members themselves have not been conferred with on their relative importance. As a member-driven network, future research to investigate the experiences of INFOSAN members in a rigorous and systematic manner is recommended. Such work could illuminate the specific areas in which to introduce operational shifts by the INFOSAN Secretariat, to strengthen the global CoP, increase the value of INFOSAN among members, and have a robust and meaningful impact at country level to reduce the burden of foodborne disease globally.

Extracting Events of Food Safety Emergencies with Characteristics Knowledge

Extracting Events of Food Safety Emergencies with Characteristics Knowledge

Locating Logistics Locations of Suspicious Agricultural Production Food Safety Emergencies

It is difficult to locate the suspicious agricultural products in agricultural product safety emergencies, this study builds an agricultural product logistics system from suppliers to retailers based on RFID technology and designs an agricultural product logistics tracking systems, which collects and integrates underlying data from logistics nodes. Tracking queries get logistics node addresses from the address resolution service system by Internet and obtain and synthesize data from all the underlying data sources to trace agricultural product information for effectively locating locations of suspicious agricultural products. It is very important to prevent more extension for safety emergencies.

Logistics Tracings in Food Safety Emergencies Based on the RFID Technology

It is difficult to locate questionable foods in food safety emergencies, this study builds a food logistics framework from producers to retailers based on the RFID technology and designs a food logistics tracking systems, which transfers and tackles underlying data from logistics nodes. Tracking queries get IP addresses of logistics nodes from the address resolution service system by Internet. The queries are decomposed and composed to obtain and synthesize data from all the underlying data sources to trace food information for effectively tracing locations of questionable foods. The work is very important to prevent more spreads of food safety emergencies.

Thin-layer chromatography/direct analysis in real time time-of-flight mass spectrometry and isotope dilution to analyze organophosphorus insecticides in fatty foods

To assess food safety emergencies caused by highly hazardous chemical-tainted foods, simultaneous analysis of organophosphorus insecticides in fatty foods such as precooked foods was conducted using thin-layer chromatography/direct analysis in real time time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TLC/DART-TOFMS) and isotope dilution technique. Polar (methamidophos and acephate) and nonpolar organophosphorus insecticides (fenitrothion, diazinon, and EPN) were studied. Experiments to ascertain chromatographic patterns using TLC/DART-TOFMS reveal that it was more useful than GC/MS or GC/MS/MS for the simultaneous analyses of polar and nonpolar pesticides, while obviating the addition of a protective agent for tailing effects of polar pesticides. Lower helium gas temperature (260°C) for DART-TOFMS was suitable for the simultaneous analysis of target pesticides. Linearities were achieved respectively at a lower standard concentration range (0.05–5μg) for diazinon and EPN and at a higher standard concentration range (2.5–25μg) for methamidophos, acephate, and fenitrothion. Their respective coefficients of determination were ≥0.9989 and ≥0.9959. A few higher repeatabilities (RSDs) for diazinon and EPN were found (>20%), although isotope dilution technique was used. Application to the HPTLC plate without an automatic TLC sampler might be inferred as a cause of their higher RSDs. Detection limits were estimated in the higher picogram range for diazinon and EPN, and in the lower nanogram range for methamidophos, acephate, and fenitrothion. Aside from methamidophos, recovery results (n=3) obtained using a highly insecticide-tainted fatty food (dumpling) and raw food (grapefruit) samples (10mg/kg) using TLC/DART-TOFMS with both complex and simpler cleanups were not as susceptible to matrix effects (95–121%; RSD, 1.3–14%) as those using GC/MS/MS (102–117%; RSD, 0.4–8.5%), although dumpling samples using GC/MS were remarkably susceptible to matrix effects. The coupled method of TLC with simpler cleanup and DART-TOFMS can be regarded as the same analytical tool as GC/MS/MS, which is useful to assess food safety emergencies caused by highly hazardous chemical-tainted foods.

Enabling chain-wide transparency in meat supply chains based on the EPCIS global standard and cloud-based services

Transparency in meat supply chains is necessary to guarantee the safety, quality and trust of consumers in meat products. However, transparency systems currently in place are often not adequate for sharing transparency data among food operators, providing consumers accurate transparency information, or enabling authorities to respond quickly and effectively in cases of food safety emergencies. Due to major meat crises and scandals the meat sector has in this respect attracted substantial attention. In this paper we identify regulatory, business, consumer and technological requirements for meat supply chain transparency systems and present a reference software architecture that will guide the realisation of these systems. The reference architecture is characterized by three main elements: the EPCIS standard for tracking and tracing, cloud-based realisation of transparency systems, and the provision of transparency systems as services by third-party transparency service providers (3pTSPs). Usage scenarios are presented to explain how the different types of meat supply chain actors can use transparency systems that are based on the architecture.

Evolution Mechanism of Public Psychology Amidst Food Safety Emergencies

Public psychological reaction to food safety emergencies is influenced by various factors like the destructive force of events, the influence of rumors, government intervention and public risk response ability, among which the most direct influence to public psychology is disaster information dissemination. This paper investigate the influences that panic growth rate, white noise rumor and government intervention have on public psychology amidst food safety emergencies, and propose the public psychology regulation system to cope with food safety emergencies. The goal of our research is: revealing the mutual inhibition mechanism between mass rationality and mass panic in food safety events. Our research results indicate that with the changes of mass panic growth rate, the public psychology differentiates into two steady states (mass panic and public numbness) and one unsteady state (mass rationality state). Meanwhile, mass panic and public numbness leap to change at the saddle node bifurcation points, and there exists a lagging effect.

Planning for rapid response to outbreakers of animal diseases transmissible to humans via food

Planning for rapid response to outbreaks of foodborne zoonoses requires coordination and intersectoral collaboration, making the process inherently complex. Guidance documents have been published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on the topics of foodborne outbreak investigation, establishing food safety emergency response plans, applying risk analysis principles during food safety emergencies, and developing national food recall systems. These guides should be used as resources by national authorities to develop national plans which should each reference the other in order to maintain consistency at the country level. FAO and WHO, together with the World Organisation for Animal Health (O1E), are the international organisations responsible at the global level for the health of people and animals and for food safety and security. As such, these organisations need to continue to work together to develop an intersectoral mechanism to conduct robust and timely joint risk assessments in the face of foodborne outbreaks and other food safety emergencies. Three international instruments have the potential to aid countries in their preparedness to face outbreaks of foodborne zoonoses and organise subsequent response efforts: the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN), the newly enhanced Global Early Warning System for Major Animal Diseases, including Zoonoses (GLEWS+), and the FAO Emergency Prevention System for Food Safety (EMPRES Food Safety).

Deal with food safety emergency using risk analysis principle

三鹿牌婴幼儿配方奶粉污染三聚氰胺事件(下简称三鹿事件)的发生给我国食品安全的方方面面产生了极大的影响,对整个乳品行业造成了巨大的冲击,同时反映了我国食品安全在监管体制、企业诚信、道德素质等方面存在许多问题.三鹿事件与我国曾经发生的苏丹红污染事件在事情的本质上是相同的,均为在食品原料中非法添加非食品用化学物质,但后果则显然不同.三鹿事件造成了数以万计婴幼儿肾结石的严重后果,且波及范围很大.如何正确处理和应对是对政府决策和管理能力的一个考验。