(Wednesday 16th October 2019 Issue)
Food
Safety and Quality Authority (FSQA), in collaboration with the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, Monday commenced a
training on risk profiling.
The
objective of the training is to strengthen the capacity of FSQA scientific and
inspection officers, officers of relevant regulatory institutions and members
of the scientific committee of the authority on the concept and approaches of
the process of risk analysis and profiling.
Principal
scientific officer for risk profiling at FSQA, Lamin Jaiteh said in terms of
food safety regulatory work, all decisions has to be informed by science.
He
said food safety risk is a problem in the world and they have to get the science
to do the work right. “Without science, we cannot do the work.”
Andreas
Kiermeier, a private consultant at FAO said the training is a ground work for
the participants to decide whether extra-regulation and food safety risk
management is required.
“Participants
will construct process flow diagrams and quality products volumes and microbial
contamination throughout the exposure pathway(s),” he said.
Andreas
said the risk ranger tool will be introduced with the aim of assisting
participants develop more refined risk estimates and assist with the
identification of critical data gaps. He said the filling of the gaps will be
addressed by designing baseline surveys and national food surveillance
programs. “Risk profiles are used across the food industry to help assess food
safety risks and to provide contextual and background information about the
potential risk when a food and hazard are combined,” he said.
According
to him, the profiles also assist risk managers to make decisions about further
action and regulators to develop requirements for risk-based food control
programmes. “The programme is one of the activities of the European Union
funded Agriculture for Economic Growth Project also known as the Envelope A
project under FAO.”