Food security: K-P food authority mandates blood tests for food handlers

Step taken after food handlers test positive for communicable diseases

PESHAWAR: In a bid to reduce the risk of communicable diseases in products which are produced and handled in the province, the provincial food authority has decided that those directly or indirectly involved in handling food items, including at ice factories and even at grocery stores, must be subject to mandatory blood tests.

The directions were issued by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Food Safety and Halal Food Authority as people applied for licences. It added that when staff were checked, blood samples of many of those involved in such businesses had tested positive for communicable Hepatitis ‘B’ and ‘C’ — especially in the Kohat district.

According to the officials at the authority, people operating food producing and handling businesses such as grocery stores, ice-making factories, bakeries, fast food joints, chicken and meat butchering shops and all those items involving ‘food’ must now also obtain a medical certificate for their staff.

“We found that some directly in contact with food items had tested positive for Hepatitis B and C and this was the reason why we have made this [blood tests] mandatory,” stated Kamran Yousafzai, the deputy director of the authority told The Express Tribune.

He stated that the issue would not have surfaced had the licensing of such businesses had not been made mandatory, adding that owners of as many as 121 food outlets had applied for a licence who have a total of staff 250 members. All of these were screened and seven of them were found to have tested as positive for communicable diseases.

“Khan Imran, a resident of Kohat operating a chicken meat shop requested not to take action against him after he was found to be a Hepatitis C patient and this was something shocking for us,” Yousafzai shared, adding that these issues surfaced in the initial stages of the licencing process in the province, but the figure seems alarming since such people pose a potential threat for spreading the disease.

“So far, medical tests of only the workers who are in direct contact with food or selling it are held mandatory since we fear the ratio may be higher amongst grocery store owners and Afghan refugees linked with food businesses,” Yousafzai stated.

He added that those who have tested positive have been banned from working at food outlets until they were treated, adding that directives were issued for other workers to cover their face and hands.

The food authority official denied that the stringent licencing requirements were putting an extra burden on food handlers. Instead, he explained, they were merely replacing the old permits issued by the food, health, tourism and other departments.

“What we are doing is, we collect data of all those running restaurants and hotels and do their blood tests for viral infections such as hepatitis and tuberculosis,” K-P Food Safety and Halal Food Authority Director General Riaz Mehsood told The Express Tribune.

“Yes, if someone tests as positive, we ban them [from working with food] since we fear the viral infection could be transferred to others,” Mehsood said, adding that the ‘blood tests’ have been made mandatory for all those involved directly in food business across the province.”

Since March, the food authority has conducted 1,154 inspections. As many as 742 food outlets have been inspected thus far and some 402 follow-up visits have also been made to check improvements. Around 64 food outlets have been penalised for using non-food colours and Chinese salt, mislabeling, rusted utensils and the presence of rodents’ faeces in the production area.

Around 4,979 litres and kilogrammes of adulterated milk, substandard soft drinks, contaminated sweets and harmful spices have been discarded at locations which food experts examined while the management was guided on improvements.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2018.