"Our aim is to become one of the countries with the lowest cases of food poisoning," said Sheikh Dr Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani, director of Public Health, MoPH.
He was addressing a group of officials attending a MoPH workshop on preventing and raising awareness on food poisoning in the country.
"We are also increasing surveillance to avoid any food poisoning outbreaks," the official explained while revealing that the MoPH was working on launching Qatar's first ever public health strategy.
Sheikh Dr Mohamed pointed out that Qatar has been ranked first in the Gulf and 15th globally in health quality by the Legatum Prosperity Index 2016.
“We are working on lowering the cases of food poising as well as responding to such cases very quickly. We also focus on lowering the suffering, inconveniences and the hardships during the treatment of food poisoning cases. We have engaged an internationally reputable company for this. We are targeting to have a safe country free from food poisoning,” continued the official.
Sheikh Dr Mohamed said that the MoPH will propose several regulations to make the necessary changes in the existing laws.
“We are building capacities with regulations so that the restaurants and labour camps serve healthy food and there will be regular monitoring and awareness. As much as 99% of the food imported to the country is safe and the incidents of food poisoning happen due to wrong storage and improper practices by the people. We already have many laws in this regard and the ministry will propose several new regulations,” he added.
Dr. Hamad Eid al-Rumaihi, director, Health Protection & Communicable Disease, MoPH, told that the ministry has opened a registry for food poison incidences.
“Last year, we registered about 50 cases of food poisoning. This is more in number compared to the previous year because we did not have the registry earlier. One of the priority programmes is to improve food safety in 2017. We are working closely with the food safety department in this regard,” explained al-Rumaihi.
According to the official, the ministry officials routinely check restaurants and labour camps to increase awareness among food handlers.
“We also raise awareness among public to report any cases of food poisoning. We will respond quickly to any notifications on such incidents. The food safety personnel will go to the premises and collect samples and check in our central labs. The new law gives us the authority to close any premises if there is any violation,” he pointed out.
The official also noted that the departments of environmental health and communicable disease as well as the Ministry of Municipality are working in harmony to face the challenges of food poisoning and prevent them as much as possible.
Dr al-Rumaihi also disclosed that the MoPH is working closely with the World Health Organisation to develop a new set of guidelines on food safety in Qatar.
Sheikh Dr Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani(L), Dr Hamad Eid al-Rumaihi
Qatar will have zero tolerance on deaths caused by food poisoning, a senior official of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) announced.
