The Niger Government has begun registration of food vendors and caterers in the state following reported activities of some food sellers using poisonous and unhygienic substances to cook.
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The Director, Public Health of the state Ministry of Health, Dr Ibrahim Idris, disclosed this to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna.
“The Niger State Government has started the process of registering food vendors and caterers across the state in order to safeguard public health,” he said.
Idris said the ongoing registration exercise would enable the state Public Health Department and the Primary Health Development Agency to know how many of such businesses were existing across the state.
And to also determine who owned them and their locations, to enable government to supervise them toward safeguarding public health.
He said that the Ministry of Health was collaborating with the pharmaceutical department to sensitise the public to the health hazards inherent in using the substances to prepare food.
“We have partnered with a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) to train food vendors and caterers on food hygiene,” he said.
The director said that the ministry had issued certificates to the participants after the workshop.
He said that as part of the plans for the year 2020, the department of public health would go out on quarterly basis to check the food vendors and caterers to ensure that they adhered to best practices.
NAN reports that the measure came in the wake of reports that some food vendors and caterers in the country are using paracetamol tablets to tenderise tough meat.
The reports say other food sellers even use table spoons, nails and potassium to cook food.
Also, the state Director of Pharmaceutical Services, Abdullahi Mohammed, said when paracetamol was boiled with food a chemical component known as phenol would be released.
According to Mohammed, when such food is eaten, the phenol content would attack the liver harmfully.
Similarly, Mr Aniko Ibrahim, the state Coordinator of NAFDAC, disclosed that the national Headquarters of the agency had directed its state offices to sensitise food vendors and caterers to desist from using paracetamol and other painkillers to cook food owing to the health hazards associated with such practice.
On her part, Hajiya Aisha Aliyu, who sells cooking utensils in Minna, advised food vendors to use pressure pot to boil tough meat as it was safer and it was meant for such.
Aliyu said that although she did not indulge in using the dangerous substances to cook, “other women said that the act saves time, thereby saving cooking gas, kerosene, firewood and charcoal, depending on what you are using to cook.”