A boost to food safety in UK: £ 19.2 million project to track foodborne pathogens
Foodborne diseases in the UK cause around 2.4 million cases of illness annually. To ensure food safety throughout the food chain the government announced £ 19.2 million funding for a three-year surveillance project that monitors UK foodborne pathogens and antimicrobial-resistant microbes (AMRs).
Different institutions are involved in the project: the Food Standards Agency (FSA), Food's Standards Scotland (FSS), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Public Health England (PHE), and the Environment Agency.
The project aims to develop a pilot national surveillance network that will use the latest DNA sequencing technology and environmental sampling to improve the detection and tracking of foodborne and AMR pathogens through the whole agri-food system. At the heart of the virtual network will be a new database that will allow for the analysis, storage, and sharing of pathogen sequence and source data, collected from multiple locations across the UK by Government and public organizations.
The UK government's goal is to significantly reduce the costs associated with food-borne diseases, which amount to around 9 billion annually and cause millions of deaths a year.
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