At a time when the government’s operations to curb communicable
diseases are in full swing, a law ostensibly formed to stop spread of
diseases via food trading has been put in cold storage, owing to
official apathy. Consuming food prepared by a person affected with or is
a carrier of disease may transmit diseases. Based on this, a provision
in the Food Safety and Standards Act-2006 made it mandatory for hotel
employees to undergo health check-ups every six months and keep fitness
certificates attesting to this.
However, the state seems to have
forgotten this crucial provision and officials concerned with the
state-level monitoring of the implementation of this provision remain
oblivious to this. “Diseases like typhoid, jaundice, cholera,
constipation, dengue etc. are highly contagious and there is a strong
chance that these may spread from people who handle these food items.
There is a very high possibility that a disease can be transmitted from
one person to another, even months after the disease gets cured. To
prevent this, the government should take immediate steps to ensure the
effective implementation of the provision,” said Dr Appunni M K, former
additional district medical officer.
Food safety officers maintain
that they do not provide license to start hotels or other food trading
centers without procuring fitness certificates of employees concerned.
“But the major problem is that these employees may not continue in the
firm and some other employees may get appointed. In this context, we
cannot monitor each and every hotel to see whether the employees still
work at the same place or not,” said sources from the Food Safety
Department. Acute staff crunch is also cited as a main constraint
behind the inability to monitor the sector on a regular basis.
No comments:
Post a Comment