24 MAY 2004 | SEREMBAN, MALAYSIA - Foodborne diseases pose a serious threat to densely populated areas of Asia and the Pacific, two UN agencies said today. So far, food contamination incidents and foodborne disease outbreaks in the region have been relatively isolated, but there is a real potential for danger. Already an estimated one in three people worldwide suffer annually from a foodborne disease and 1.8 million die from severe food and waterborne diarrhoea.
Seeking to head off future threats to public health and international trade posed by potentially unsafe food in Asia and the Pacific, food safety officials and experts from some 40 countries in the region are meeting this week in Seremban, Malaysia at a four-day Regional Conference on Food Safety, under the auspices of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).