FAO plans WGS meeting; WHO wants aflatoxin data

The chance to participate in a meeting on whole genome sequencing (WGS) for food safety and water surveillance has been opened.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will organize the event in May 2025 in Rome, Italy to bring together government officials, public health professionals, researchers, and other stakeholders.

FAO will select participants based on certain criteria. People interested in the conference must apply by Nov. 4. Successful applicants will be informed in January 2025.

The FAO Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division has several ongoing initiatives on WGS for food safety management. Through partnerships with regulatory agencies and academic institutions, technical and policy documents have been developed to aid capacity development, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.

The event’s objectives include raising awareness on the benefits of using WGS for food safety and water management at the national level, discussing data generation and sharing, and forming a task force to compile evidence-based data and information to draft a white paper illustrating where we stand and what needs to be done to improve human and water health.

Applicants who have ongoing initiatives, partnerships, or projects with FAO and regulatory officials working in food safety and water surveillance will receive priority.

WHO data calls
In other news, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued two calls for data related to aflatoxins.

The first covers total aflatoxins in cereals and cereal-based products. This includes maize grain, flour, meal, semolina, and flakes derived from maize, husked and polished rice, and sorghum grain for further processing.

A recent Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods meeting asked the Joint FAO/WHO expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) secretariat to issue a call for data on aflatoxins in cereals and cereal-based products, including food for infants and young children.

Information is requested on the country of origin, the state of the food analyzed, and the limits of detection and quantification of analytical methods.

The second call is for data on total aflatoxins in ready-to-eat peanuts.

Data collected with methods with a quantification limit of 4 μg/kg or below is required. Data on the occurrence of total aflatoxins should be from the past 10 years.

All new data must be uploaded in the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) database by Oct. 31, 2024.

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