Food safety surveillance in Bhutan, conducted from 2019 to 2021

Abstract

Food-borne diseases are caused by a wide range of microbiological and chemical or toxins withdifferent levels of severity, which range from mild sickness to life-threatening illness. The WorldHealth Organization estimates that the global burden of foodborne diseases is 420000 mortality andat least 1 in 10 people falls ill every year from eating contaminated food. African and South-EastAsia Regions have the highest burden of foodborne diseases. Several devastating outbreaks offoodborne diseases have been reported in Bhutan. This report presents the food safety surveillancedata for food samples collected between June 2019 to December 2021 from five Districts (Paro,Thimphu, Phuentsholing, Gelephu and Monggar). Ready-to-eat food samples were collected byFood inspectors and samples were shipped to Royal Centre for Disease Control (RCDC) maintaininga cold chain during transportation. The results show that 12.36% (n=78) of food samples were nonacceptabledue to indicator test organism contamination and 8.71% (n=55) of the RTE food sampleswere unacceptable due to the presence of the pathogenic organism. The common type of pathogenisolated was Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus cereus, and low detection of Aeromonas andShigella spp. The seasonality pattern of food contamination shows that most contamination occurredhigher during hot and wet seasons. The findings demonstrate that RTE is likely to cause foodborneillness. Therefore, education on personal hygiene, good manufacturing practices and food safetyaspect would improve food quality thereby reducing the incidence of foodborne incidences.