On August 23, at the Government headquarters, the Central Interdisciplinary Steering Committee on Food Safety met under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long, Head of the Steering Committee.
According to the Government Office, reporting at the meeting, Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen said that in the first 6 months of 2024, the entire health sector inspected 232,702 establishments, detecting 15,046 establishments violating food safety. ( food safety), accounting for 6.46% of inspected establishments, down compared to the same period in 2023.
"The average fine for an establishment in the first 6 months of 2024 is 8.69 million VND, an increase compared to the same period in 2023 (4.09 million VND)," Mr. Do Xuan Tuyen said.
In the first 6 months of 2024, the whole country recorded 70 cases of food poisoning, infecting 2,942 people and 12 deaths. Compared to the same period in 2023, the number of cases increased by 4 cases (6.1%), the number of infected people increased by 1,986 people, and the number of deaths decreased by 1 person.
Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long stated that in recent times, ministries and branches, especially ministries directly tasked with ensuring food safety, have made many efforts and achieved results. positive.
The Deputy Prime Minister gave the example of Ho Chi Minh City not having serious poisoning cases or the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announcing more OCOP products. Overall, we are on the right track and the solutions to this problem are already working.
However, there are still some limitations that need to be overcome. The risk of losing food safety still exists. Among them, there are emerging problems of food poisoning with a large number of people infected, the number of violations discovered and the application of sanctions increasing...
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, society's needs are increasingly high but there is still a large gap between our resources and our ability to respond to this work.
Responding to the opinions of ministries and localities on the issue of increasing staffing for this work, the Deputy Prime Minister said that increasing staffing is very difficult and needs to think of other solutions.
The Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Health to preside over and coordinate with ministries and branches to propose perfecting institutions on food safety, including proposing amendments to the Law on Food Safety, Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP in the direction of focus, focus and specific output, not in general terms. The solution must be feasible.
The Ministry of Health researches and processes Ho Chi Minh City's proposal related to the use of rapid food safety test kits.
The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade operate the database system at full capacity and practically, continuing to invest within their capabilities to enrich the database and connect with the system of the Ministry of Health. economy to operate smoothly.
The Deputy Prime Minister stated clearly that in ensuring food safety, people's awareness is very important; Forming smart consumption habits and consumer culture will be sustainable, but just increasing the number of inspectors is not necessarily effective.
In particular, it is necessary to strengthen surprise inspections. When violations are detected, they must be strictly handled and communicated to warn the public.
Ho Chi Minh City continues to operate the Department of Food Safety model, with evaluation during the pilot implementation process to contribute ideas to the Central Government to propose the model, consolidate the organization, and increase resources.
