PGI Takes Lead To Address on Food Safety Issues

By 121 News

Chandigarh 05^th April:- The topic for World Health Day 2015 is 'Food Safety'. School of Public Health conducted a study aimed to ascertain the determinants of degree of conformance of eating establishments(EE) of PGI, Chandigarh to Food Safety and Standards Regulations 2011(FSSR 2011); To ascertain the knowledge, attitude, and practices of food handlers working in these establishments about food safety and determinants thereof; To ascertain the degree of client satisfaction and its correlates with respect to quality of services/ food safety provided by these eating establishments.         Dr Puja Dudeja who conducted the above study as part of her Ph.D. thesis is being showered with the requests by Public Health experts across the country to lend her short film on this topic "Farm to Fork" to them for screeningon 7thApril @WHO day theme.She is willingly and happily obliging them.This film, like her previous one, is listed in Deptt of Science & Technology, Govt. Of India'sfestival book ofVigyan Prasarprogram. This film was a part of thePhD research work of Dr. Puja Dudeja. She along with Dr Amarjeet Singh Professor School of Public Health, PGI Chandigarh took the lead to initiate research on food safety aspects in hospital setting.                                                                                                                                 For training of food handlers a booklet in Hindi and English, two short films and posters on do's and don'ts of food safety were developed. All food handlers (n=264) were trained on food safety.Based on data collected following results were found: As far as status of conformance to FSSR 2011 was concerned no EE was found to be excellent. One third of EEs were rated as poor. The minimum score was 41.28%. The highest score was the kitchen of Dietetics Department of PGI (77.25%). Reasons for poor score of EEs were poor personal hygiene and lack of training of food handlers. Food safety practices of food handlers to prevent microbial cross contamination are dismal. Lack of hygiene and sanitation, poor maintenance and inappropriate disposal of solid waste in the EEs contributed to lack of food safety.