Food safety has become an increasingly crucial public health issue and growing concern across the world. Efforts at government level have been intensified to improve production, manufacturing and delivery of animal originated food to ensure food safety. Although major nutritional improvements have been achieved in the South East Asian region since 1990's, food safety is, however, a major concern in this region. Food safety is seriously threatened due to a number causes such as foodborne diseases, inadequate access to clean water, adulteration of food with different toxic chemicals, the increased use of pesticides and other chemicals in agriculture and food processing, and the lack of producer and consumer education. According to WHO and FAO, there have been a number of globally significant issues and challenges concerned with food safety. Changes in agricultural production practices along with the expanding markets, global movement of animals and their products, changes in food processing and distribution systems, more ready-to-eat food products through urban food chain are of many reasons triggering new challenges.

In most countries of the South East Asia, laboratories with the capacity to detect common food borne hazards are rare, and even where they do exist, the high cost of testing makes an obstacle. Food related surveillance activities are also very limited and inconsistent. Due to inadequate surveillance programs on zoonotic diseases like tuberculosis and parasitic diseases, such disease can be transmitted to the food chain through the milk or meat. Absence or inefficient abattoir monitoring program can also lead to spin-over unfit meat for human consumption. In view of the recent incident at Fukushima in Japan, radiation monitoring of food and animal originated food have been prioritized to be an important and relevant matter regionally. Food safety is also connected with animal welfare and it is often said that good animal welfare equates to food safety. Duo to the negligence of veterinarians to advise their livestock clients regarding the drug withdrawal period in treated animals and the possible fisk of drug residual effect on human consumption of animal originated food, public health can be badly affected. Toxin in the animal feed can be absorbed by the animal and then get passed on to the consumer through the milk, meat or eggs produced. Risk analysis (risk assessments, risk communication and risk management) and assessment of hazard analysis and critical control points for internal and external food movements are rarely practiced in South East Asian region. In countries that have a regulatory framework for monitoring food control, enforcement is often weak, owing to inadequate infrastructure and poor resource allocation to bring about effective outcome.

With the above background, the upcoming Annual Scientific Conference of CVASU is organized to facilitate knowledge, foster cooperation among concerned organizations and provide an opportunity for regulators, food industry, food safety professionals, academia, researchers and others to network and discuss a wide range of food safety issues and challenges and their possible solutions.

Download: The CVASU Conference Brochure 2012