Keeping food safe from harmful germs

ABSTRACT

The health of people depends to a large extent on the food they eat. Keeping food safe from harmful germs and their toxic products is therefore an important problem, which over the years has engaged the attention of various WHO expert committees concerned with different aspects of food hygiene. The latest report of the WHO Expert Committee on the microbiological aspects of food hygiene which met in Geneva in March 1976 (with the participation of FAO), has recently been published and it describes the microbiological agents of food-borne disease and the microbiological hazards in relation to foods. The article below, which is adapted from the second part of the Report, describes the microbiological hazards related to food processing, handling and storage, population movements, tourism, etc., as well as the measures available to control them