Africa has the world’s highest per-capita rate of foodborne illnesses, and public health experts are worried that the problem isn’t being adequately addressed.
Foodborne hazards are responsible for 137,000 deaths and 91 million acute illnesses in Africa every year, mostly affecting children under age 5, according to World Health Organization data cited in a February 21, 2019 WBUR article.
Most funding for food safety efforts in Africa comes from Western donors, and most of those efforts focus on the safety of exported foods, according to a new World Bank report mentioned in the article.
“The numbers are pretty staggering,” said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who was not involved in the report. “It’s a major public health problem, right below tuberculosis, malaria and HIV. But foodborne illness has flown under the radar screen.”
Read the WBUR article: A Fatal Public Health Problem In Africa That Flies Under The Radar