CAIRO: A report released by the Egypt's National Council for Services and Social Development of the specialized national councils revealed in a report titled “Food safety and quality” that various control devices confirmed that there are increased dimensions of food contamination in both domestic and imported meat, local fish, poultry, dairy, baby food, salt, oil, wheat and materials in the sweets industry including ghee, lentils and sugar. The reported added that shortages of some food commodities and increased demand has led to increased fraud and fraudulent trading, and caused the spread of bad food and contaminated markets, whether domestic or imported, or via an unknown source. The report said that the local market in general has passed “bitter periods during which were exacerbated by the phenomenon of the import of food commodities from anonymous sources and did not conform to standards of specifications, after having been rejected in other countries, unlike in Egypt, where such goods entered its market.” Concerning pesticides, the report said that there was widespread health damages to citizens “as the effects remain in the soil for many years, the plants absorb part of these chemicals and then move – according to the report – to the animals that feed on these plants and appear in the milk and meat,” noting that humans get affected by these pesticides in a direct or indirect manner. The report emphasized that much of the meat, poultry and dairy “may become contaminated with pesticides,” pointing out that the seriousness of the pesticides “increase more than the natural rate as a result of their cumulative effects.” It said that contamination of food by these pesticides and chemicals later have significant impacts on health “as affected food is contaminated with pesticides and affects the nervous system and causes irritation. It also affects the liver and its functions.” According to the report, the pesticides used in Egypt are also “detrimental to reproduction and fertility and leads to deformity of the fetus.” The report added that the organophosphorous pesticides increases respiratory failure and can cause convulsions leading to death, indicating that eating foods containing residues of these compounds leads to cancer. The report also noted that food contaminated in Egypt led generally to the emergence of diseases such as typhoid fever, liver disease, kidney failure, food poisoning, “which has made the citizen thin and weak and unable to work and produce.” It pointed out that the diseases caused by eating contaminated food leads to “increased expenditures on health care allocation as well as time lost in the search for knowledge of the type of diseases and the search for care.” The report concluded by stressing that the provisions for proper food is the responsibility of the government and measures are currently being taken to tackle the issue. BM
