NEW DELHI, Feb 20:
To help determine the causes of outbreaks of food poisoning and infections effectively, the Union Health Ministery today launched an indigenously developed kit for detection of food-borne pathogens.
The technology has been developed by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) Hyderabad.
“The kit for detection of food borne pathogens will be very useful to determine the causes of outbreaks of food poisoning and food borne common infections caused by eating of contaminated eggs, poultry, meat, dairy products as well as vegetables, contaminated with water borne infections,” Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said while launching the kit.
The Minister highlighted that this user friendly and rapid detection system will be of immense use not only to the Food Safety Authority of India but also to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, which reports on food poisoning outbreaks and to diagnostic laboratories in Government as well as to private sector.
Studies show that about 13 per cent of deaths among children of less than five years of age are due to diarrhoea, which is caused essentially due to consumption of contaminated food and water, Azad said.
The kits developed by NIN in collaboration with Bioserve Biotechnologies are indigenous, less time consuming and cost 1/3rd of the imported kits costs.
Use of the kits by the food industry will not only help domestic consumers in having safe food but also help reducing export rejections on account of microbiological contamination.
The second kit, Azad said, will help in estimating the quantity of ferritin and help in diagnosing iron deficiency anaemia individually as well as for mass level screening.
“This test will be useful to decide supplementation of iron according to the need and also to avoid iron dosing in conditions where iron accumulates in the body; for instance due to repeated blood transfusions in cases of Thalassemia, Haemophilia and others,” Azad said.
The present estimates of anaemia due to iron deficiency in different groups vary widely from 5 per cent to 50 per cent.
Besides this variation, there are large numbers of adolescent boys and girls who are anaemic. As per National Family Health Survey, 56 per cent of girls and 30 per cent of boys in the age group of 10-19 years are anaemic, the Minister said.
In India anaemia control strategies are based on haemoglobin levels. However, estimation of serum ferritin has been found to be the specific diagnostic tool for early detection of iron deficiency leading to anaemia.(PTI)
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