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Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study

Introduction: Foodborne diseases, together with increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), pose a threat to public health in an era of huge challenges with climate change and the risks of zoonotic epidemics. A One Health approach to foster food safety is a key for improvement, particularly in comple...

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Autores principales: Abukhattab, Said, Kull, Miriam, Abu-Rmeileh, Niveen M. E., Cissé, Guéladio, Crump, Lisa, Hattendorf, Jan, Zinsstag, Jakob
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9598066/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36290016
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11101359
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author Abukhattab, Said
Kull, Miriam
Abu-Rmeileh, Niveen M. E.
Cissé, Guéladio
Crump, Lisa
Hattendorf, Jan
Zinsstag, Jakob
author_facet Abukhattab, Said
Kull, Miriam
Abu-Rmeileh, Niveen M. E.
Cissé, Guéladio
Crump, Lisa
Hattendorf, Jan
Zinsstag, Jakob
author_sort Abukhattab, Said
collection PubMed
description Introduction: Foodborne diseases, together with increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), pose a threat to public health in an era of huge challenges with climate change and the risks of zoonotic epidemics. A One Health approach to foster food safety is a key for improvement, particularly in complex socio-ecological systems such as in Palestine, to examine human–animal-environment interfaces and promote intersectoral action. Objectives: This study aimed to assess food safety from farm to public health toward an operational One Health strategy for Palestine. This study evaluates the food production (broiler production) and monitoring system to better understanding the zoonotic foodborne illnesses transmission and their resistance to antimicrobials. Methods: The transdisciplinary approach included multi-stakeholder discussion groups and field visits to broiler farms, slaughterhouses, and meat stores in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh and Jerusalem districts using a semi-structured observational tool. A survey with 337 poultry producers and workers in slaughterhouses and meat stores was conducted to assess hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and practices during broiler meat production. Results: The stakeholders point out various challenges along the food production chain in Palestine, such as a striking scarcity of public slaughterhouses, insufficient coordination between authorities, a gap between public and private sectors, and inconsistent application of the law. From observations, it appears that, unlike traditional broiler production, the public slaughterhouses and meat markets have effective hygiene, while large-scale farms implement biosecurity measures. Overall, surveyed participants reported that they are aware of zoonotic disease transmission routes and value hygiene standards. Semi-structured observations and survey results are contradictory. Observations indicate poor hygiene practices; however, the vast majority of broiler meat production chain workers claim that hygiene standards are met. Discussion and Conclusions: Our study found that the overuse of antimicrobials, system fragmentation, insufficient infrastructure, a lack of regulations and controls, and poor hygiene practices are among the main obstacles to improving food safety in Palestine. Considering the risk of an important human health burden of food-related illnesses, enhancing food safety in Palestine is required using an integrated One Health approach. It is crucial to develop an integrated quality control system for food production along with promoting on-farm biosecurity and antimicrobial stewardship. Infrastructure, especially slaughterhouses and laboratories, must be built, training and education provided, and consumer awareness raised. As an important added value within a One Health strategy for better food safety in Palestine, research should be reinforced and accompany any future development of the food production monitoring system.
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spelling pubmed-95980662022-10-27 Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study Abukhattab, Said Kull, Miriam Abu-Rmeileh, Niveen M. E. Cissé, Guéladio Crump, Lisa Hattendorf, Jan Zinsstag, Jakob Antibiotics (Basel) Article Introduction: Foodborne diseases, together with increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), pose a threat to public health in an era of huge challenges with climate change and the risks of zoonotic epidemics. A One Health approach to foster food safety is a key for improvement, particularly in complex socio-ecological systems such as in Palestine, to examine human–animal-environment interfaces and promote intersectoral action. Objectives: This study aimed to assess food safety from farm to public health toward an operational One Health strategy for Palestine. This study evaluates the food production (broiler production) and monitoring system to better understanding the zoonotic foodborne illnesses transmission and their resistance to antimicrobials. Methods: The transdisciplinary approach included multi-stakeholder discussion groups and field visits to broiler farms, slaughterhouses, and meat stores in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh and Jerusalem districts using a semi-structured observational tool. A survey with 337 poultry producers and workers in slaughterhouses and meat stores was conducted to assess hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and practices during broiler meat production. Results: The stakeholders point out various challenges along the food production chain in Palestine, such as a striking scarcity of public slaughterhouses, insufficient coordination between authorities, a gap between public and private sectors, and inconsistent application of the law. From observations, it appears that, unlike traditional broiler production, the public slaughterhouses and meat markets have effective hygiene, while large-scale farms implement biosecurity measures. Overall, surveyed participants reported that they are aware of zoonotic disease transmission routes and value hygiene standards. Semi-structured observations and survey results are contradictory. Observations indicate poor hygiene practices; however, the vast majority of broiler meat production chain workers claim that hygiene standards are met. Discussion and Conclusions: Our study found that the overuse of antimicrobials, system fragmentation, insufficient infrastructure, a lack of regulations and controls, and poor hygiene practices are among the main obstacles to improving food safety in Palestine. Considering the risk of an important human health burden of food-related illnesses, enhancing food safety in Palestine is required using an integrated One Health approach. It is crucial to develop an integrated quality control system for food production along with promoting on-farm biosecurity and antimicrobial stewardship. Infrastructure, especially slaughterhouses and laboratories, must be built, training and education provided, and consumer awareness raised. As an important added value within a One Health strategy for better food safety in Palestine, research should be reinforced and accompany any future development of the food production monitoring system. MDPI 2022-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9598066/ /pubmed/36290016 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11101359 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Abukhattab, Said
Kull, Miriam
Abu-Rmeileh, Niveen M. E.
Cissé, Guéladio
Crump, Lisa
Hattendorf, Jan
Zinsstag, Jakob
Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study
title Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study
title_full Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study
title_fullStr Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study
title_full_unstemmed Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study
title_short Towards a One Health Food Safety Strategy for Palestine: A Mixed-Method Study
title_sort towards a one health food safety strategy for palestine: a mixed-method study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9598066/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36290016
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11101359
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