Committee Set Up to Deal With Food Poisoning

RIYADH, 26 July 2007 — As part of its efforts to minimize the instances of food poisoning, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has instructed all municipal and mayor’s offices in the Kingdom to set up a committees to deal with the issue and take prompt action.

In a circular issued yesterday Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Prince Miteb, directed all the municipal and mayoral offices to take strict penal measures against those who are responsible for food poisoning in line with a previous royal order.

Prince Miteb also ordered the setting up of a food-poison national committee comprising representatives of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Health and the General Commission for Food and Medicine in every municipality and mayoralty.

The committee has the responsibility to look into cases of food poisoning. The committee will submit its reports on cases and recommend the punishments to be meted out to the culprits to the minister of municipal and rural affairs for endorsement.

The tasks of the committee are defined as conducting direct and immediate investigation to establish the source of every reported case of food poisoning. It is the responsibility of the committee to discover the cause of the accident and then follow-up on the accident victims to determine the consequences of the accident in detail. It will also investigate if the workers at the establishment, where the food poisoning occurred, had observed the relevant hygienic regulations.

The committee is also responsible to take the samples of the food, examine the kitchen, the method of preparation, the time elapsed between the preparation and serving of the food and the place of eating.

The circular also stressed the need for speedy action by the committee and the coordination of all the members in order to achieve the goals of the committee, the Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday.

The circular stressed the need for preciseness of the information collected by the committee so that the appropriate decision could be taken in cases of food poisoning and stop their recurrence.

In another order, the minister directed that all cases of food poisoning in the Kingdom should be reported to the office of the undersecretary for municipal affairs at the ministry.