April 27, 2009

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) has launched a plan to reduce the incidence of salmonella in food.

NZFSA's salmonella risk management strategy spells out a specific programme of work aimed at reducing the incidence of food borne salmonellosis.

NZFSA principal advisor Judi Lee said food borne diseases have a major impact on health and the economy so it is important to reduce prevalence.

Lee said NZFSA has earmarked salmonella as one of its key strategic priorities and aims to achieve a 30-percent reduction in the annual incidence of food borne salmonellosis after 5 years.

She said early stages of the strategy will focus on intelligence gathering from a wide range of domestic food sectors and imported foods to try to identify the main sources of food borne disease, in which this information will provide a sound scientific basis for pinpointing where in the food chain that needs to take action.

She said some studies of salmonella in the food chain have been completed but there are many gaps in this knowledge, adding that further research is needed to determine the incidence of food borne salmonellosis from specific food types such as animal products, plant products, domestically produced and imported foods as well as wildlife reservoirs.

She also said NZFSA needs robust New Zealand data on salmonella to refine the strategy's future direction.

She explained that many of the primary processing industries hold a significant amount of data on salmonella, as do some of the major retailing chains and that NZFSA will be collaborating with a wide range of food sectors to gain a better understanding of the prevalence of salmonella in food.