Food-Borne Disease Kills Over 90,000 Nigerians Annually - Minister

The Minister of State for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has revealed that over 100,000 Nigerians die an­nually as a result to food-borne diseases due to exposure to rodents and nutrients imbalance.
This is even as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has lamented that Nigeria has continued to face huge embarrassment from the global community due to inadequacies food safety system, as well as the need­ed rules, regulations and control.

The two ministers made the disclosures at the Inter-Ministerial Committee Meeting on Food Safety (IMCFS) in Abuja, yester­day.
Audu regretted Nigerian foods have continued to suffer huge rejection as a result of substandard pack­aging, preservation, poor nutrient quality, excess chemical content and for falling below global stan­dards and best practices.
The agriculture minis­ter who decried the poor spate of knowledge con­cerning how food is treated in the country in terms of production, preservation and packaging, called for a need for a change of at­titude.
“It is not enough to just eat but to ask questions about the standard of what we eat. Some of our foods are being rejected and causing huge embarrass­ment. So, we are beginning to ask questions about the quality of fertiliser in use, type of soil and the content of micro-nutrients in it for good agriculture to nour­ish human beings.
“What are the types of pest control and chemicals used? What are the types of preservation methods? We have to look into the is­sue of drying foods by the roadside and their repack­age for our eating. What about the use of plastics in the packaging of foods such as moi-moi, pure wa­ter left in the sun, etc?