Today, on world food safety day, the World Health Organization announced new initiatives to estimate the burden of foodborne disease at national and global level.
To help countries measure their foodborne disease burden and identify food safety system needs and data gaps, WHO has developed a national burden of foodborne disease handbook. Further details about the handbook will be provided during a webinar on 29 June. Dr Sara Pires, Working Group leader for our COST Action, played an important role in the development of the handbook, and will present during the webinar on how to estimate the burden of foodborne diseases.
Last but not least, WHO is reconvening its Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology reference group (WHO FERG) with 26 new international experts, including several members of our COST Action. The group’s main functions are to advise WHO on methodologies to estimate the global burden of foodborne diseases, to monitor global food safety indicators and measure progress being made in food safety.
