NAFDAC Warns against Storing Cooked Food in Refrigerator for More Than Three Days

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The National Agency for Food and Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has alerted Nigerians over looming threat of heightened food borne diseases resulting from poor handling of food materials.

Specifically, the agency cautioned that storing cooked food in refrigerator for more than three days was harmful to human health.

In a statement signed by NAFDAC’s Resident Media Consultant Sayo Akintola, the agency called on all stakeholders in the food supply chain to take deliberate actions to institute a food safety culture in their operations to mitigate food hazards and risks that could compromise food safety.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, globally one in 10 people become sick and 420,000 die each year after consuming contaminated food which is attributed to the loss 33 million years of healthy life with children under five years and other vulnerable groups disproportionately affected in the poorer areas of the world.

It said in developing countries about $110 billion is lost every year on medical expenses due to unsafe food.

Akintola, said the Director General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, gave the warning in her message at the 2024 World Food Safety Day.

Adeyeye was also quoted to have assured Nigerians that NAFDAC would take deliberate actions to institute a food safety culture in its operations to mitigate the food hazards and risks that could compromise food safety.

She emphasised that everybody has a role to play from the farm to the table to ensure that the food “we consume is safe and will not cause damage to our health.”

She added that for World Food Safety Day 2024, the WHO and Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are asking all stakeholders along the food supply chain if they are prepared to address unexpected threats to food safety

Adeyeye stressed that food safety remains a collective responsibility, adding that everyone from producers to consumers needed to play their part to be sure that the food we eat is safe.

She said that the yearly awareness campaign aims to promote global food safety awareness to strengthen efforts at preventing, detecting and managing foodborne risks globally by highlighting the importance of being prepared for food safety incidents.

Food safety incidents are situations where there is a potential or confirmed health risk associated with food consumption. A food incident can happen for example, due to accidents, inadequate controls, food fraud or natural events.