“We are fighting the invisible enemy,” warns the World Health Organization (WHO), according to which 600 million people worldwide are poisoned and infected each year. This is one in ten of the world’s population. Four hundred and twenty thousand of those suffering from food diseases die, one third of which are children under the age of five, writes the Spanish daily La Razon.
The new WHO report is the result of eight years of work by more than 150 scientists who have sought to investigate the impact of unfit food on morbidity and mortality in the population. Of the more than two hundred factors that can cause food poisoning and infections, World Health Organization experts have thoroughly studied the effects of 31 bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals, among them.
Children under the age of five are particularly vulnerable to foodborne illness, emphasizes the director of WHO’s food safety department, Kazuaki Miyagishima. Diarrhea is responsible for 550 million people sickness and 230 deaths. There are 220 million children in this group, 96 of whom die each year.
The risk of illnesses related to unfit for consumption is much higher in developing countries, where problems with contaminated water, poor hygiene and inadequate food storage conditions are common. Thus, the most affected regions are Africa with 91 million patients and 137 deaths annually, and Southeast Asia with 150 million cases and 175 deaths. In the Americas, 77 million people are affected and 9 die.
Food diseases can cause symptoms such as immediate diarrhea and vomiting, but in the long term, they can also contribute to the development of serious diseases such as cancer, kidney failure, liver problems and nervous disorders. In children, they can cause delays in mental and physical development. In addition, they are very dangerous in pregnant women, the elderly and with weakened immunity.
Food diseases are most often caused by listeria, cholera, brucellosis, hepatitis A virus, toxoplasmosis parasites, tapeworms, trichinella, cyanides and aflatoxins produced by molds.
In the light of the above data, WHO specialists point out the importance of double food security, which covers not only the access to food itself, but also its quality and suitability for consumption.
Based on: larazon.es