Food Safety Quality Authority will test samples in Senegalese laboratory amid the rumoured use sniper insecticide on smoked fish.
Bai DodouJallow, Director of Scientific Affairs of Food Safety Quality Authority has said his office doesn’t have the standard equipment for such testing, adding the country needs such materials for further testing.
“This institution doesn’t have the equipment for testing that is a service we would have look outside of this country because it is not every day that we do testing. We do such testing only when such incidents happened or if we are doing some investigation that is the time, we take the samples and do testing. We have a laboratory here but the laboratory we have can only do test of fortification like foods which they increased vitamin for children to grow faster. We also test food whether they have iodine,” he said.
“But for pesticide requires advance testing which we must take outside of this country for proper testing. Right now, in The Gambia we don’t have materials for testing pesticide in our laboratory. We don’t have the laboratory to test whether this sniper insecticide is in the food or not.
“If we want to do the testing, we must take the sample and take it to Senegal and test it so that we have the result. We are doing a collection of samples to take it to Senegal for further testing to get more information,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Health said in collaboration with stakeholders such as the Food Safety Quality Authority (FSQA), Department of Fisheries, National Nutrition Agency (NaNA), Ministry of Agriculture and the National Environment Agency (NEA) put in measures to verify the rumours and control the use of Sniper insecticide.
The public is informed that an inspection team is formed to investigate as well as collect samples from smoked and dried fish for analysis.