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Presently high school students across the country are testing their skills in the math Olympiad but the following question we have for you has nothing to do with just how good you are at solving problems but how prepared you are when it comes to safeguarding your health? For example, can you name the five keys to safer food? If you answered keep clean, separate raw and cooked foods, cook thoroughly, keep food at safe temperatures and use water and raw materials then you are off on a very good start.

The five keys to safer foods is what the World Health Organization has been utilizing as part of a pilot project to promote the adoption of safe food handling behaviour. Belize is the third country where the pilot project will be tried and tested and today for the first time, the stake holders met to train the trainers of the programme that will be implemented countrywide. If successful in Belize like it has been in South Africa and Tunisia then there is expected to be a marked decrease in food borne diseases.

Today 7NEWS caught up with some of the key players from the World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health who are at the forefront of the programme that will be piloted for the first time in Belize.

John Bodden, Sr. Public Health Inspector
“We know from time to time as a lack of visiting or people getting involved who are not trained, there is a lot of problems associated with food production and as such there is always the need for us to train individuals. And what we are looking at in terms of this project is to look at the rural setting, empowering people to practice safety practices in terms of food production.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
John as you are aware recently there were cases of gastroenteritis in Belize. How do you see a program like this one helping to address health issues like gastro-enteritis?

John Bodden,
“Well I think this would be one of the methods you could actually use in terms of safe guarding your food. Actually when we do have outbreaks of food borne diseases in a country, it is mainly because people have been or there have been situations where there is not good food handling practices that is being done. And as such, this will develop people’s capacity in terms of looking at how they have been producing food and eliminating those bad habits because that is one of the major things that we do have in terms of food production; people not practicing good hygiene. So this training in itself would probably lend some sort of assistance in terms of reducing that situation.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Speaking about changing people’s behaviour, I think it is well easier for you guys to have access to restaurants and to food vendors and to send out this message. But when it comes to actually going into the homes that is a different matter because you don’t have any control, you are just hoping that the households follow the advice given. But what happens in the home can indeed affect the community at large. How do you see this program getting the message to these families or to families on a whole?

Jorgen Schliundt, Dir of Food Safety – WHO
“You can do it in many different ways. One of the things that we are trying to do in this training course is to say we should find different target groups. So in Belize you would find the target groups where you think it would work most efficiently. It could be women’s groups, it could be kids in the school, it could be street food vendors, or it could be all of them. But you target it to certain groups and then you change your message because if you are talking to sixth grade kids, you talk in a different way, you do it in a different way than if you are talking to women.”

John Bodden,
“Eventually we will have these people go out into the communities and train others so you would have a chain link event or domino effect where you tend to have the increase in the numbers of people being trained.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
And who are being trained?

John Bodden,
“Today at this training we have public health inspectors, we have health educators, we have food inspection officers, we have people from the Bureau of Standards as well as people from BELTRAIDE. In fact food safety must be looked a broader spectrum whereby it can be used within your homes as well as the established food production agencies.

For us it will be developing a plan as to how we move forward with this project itself. It will be countrywide activity. However the way it is actually implemented in each district will be dependent on the needs of the communities.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
This sounds like a lot of work and it sounds like a lot of trainers are needed. Do you think you have enough people here being trained to carry out this program?

John Bodden,
“There is never enough but what we do have today should be a cadre that is sufficient enough to start.”

Following the training of trainers programme on the five keys to safer food, the stakeholders who include the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, the Belize Agriculture and Health Authority and the Ministry of Health will formulate a plan of action on how the programme will be implemented countrywide.