Nasim blames negligence of sanitary inspectors

Skipping their due role in curbing food adulteration and contamination, sanitary inspectors are “busy doing other things” but enjoying their salaries, Health Minister Mohammed Nasim told a conference in the capital yesterday.

“There was a time when we found sanitary inspectors checking food quality in marketplaces. Now they are not seen there,” he said.

There are around 600 sanitary inspectors, key staff for food inspection and law enforcement under the Institute of Public Health of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

“We have many laws, tough laws, but they have no implementation,” Nasim said, exerting his grievance over a sheer lack of coordination among the health, food and agriculture ministries.

“On the question of food adulteration, I pass the blame on to the food ministry, the food ministry passes it on to the agriculture ministry. That is how things are operated,” he said.

He urged the ministries' senior officials to build strong coordination to monitor field level officials to ensure safe food and implement the idea of “one health”.

“One health” is a coordinated approach of the health, environment and forests, food and agriculture ministries to address threats of emerging infectious diseases originating from animals like the Nipah virus, avian influenza and Ebola, say the conference's organisers.

The inauguration of the three-day 8th One Health Bangladesh Conference was held at Raowa Convention Hall.

The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) organised it with support from the health ministry, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), Unicef, USAID, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dennis Carroll, director, Global Health Security and Development, Bureau for Global Health, USAID, said the speed with which emergent diseases can surface and spread raises serious public health, economic and global security and development concerns.

“When we fail to have in place multi-sectoral core competencies for prevention, early detection and control, even a limited spillover of a novel pathogen from animals into humans can quickly spread and have global consequences,” he said.

IEDCR Director Prof Mahmudur Rahman said like the world's other parts, Bangladesh was also popularising the “one health movement”, primarily coordinating the health, fisheries and livestock and the environment and forests ministries.

The idea is to ensure better surveillance of diseases and take preventive action well ahead of time, he said.

Fisheries and Livestock Secretary Dr Shelina Afroza, Health Secretary Syed Monjurul Islam, Chief Conservator of Forests Yunus Ali, FAO Representative in Bangladesh Mike Robson and One Health Coordinator Dr Nitish C Debnath and WHO Representative Dr N Paranietharan also spoke.