**Risk Factors and Outcomes of Food Poisoning in Africa**

## Ntambwe Malangu

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/60612

#### **Abstract**

Food poisoning is one of the common health problems in most African countries. This review was conducted to describe the situation in Africa with regard to specific risk factors and outcomes of food poisoning in the African setting based on published lit‐ erature.

It is noted that food poisoning in Africa involves the staple foods used throughout the continent, but due to lack of surveillance systems, the actual burden of food poisoning is unknown. While the general mechanisms of food poisoning apply to the African settings, inherent issues specific to the African context include macro-environmental issues such as infrastructural problems, inadequate policy environment and lack of regulatory food control systems, leading to unsafe foods being sold in the streets. In addition, individual sociodemographic factors, including the age, gender, health sta‐ tus and lack of food safety knowledge among the population and food handlers and preparers, as well as the country's contextual factors such as unsafe harvesting practi‐ ces, are all associated with the occurrence of food poisoning in Africa.

Also due to a lack of surveillance systems and population-based studies, the outcomes of food poisoning are not adequately documented. It is clear that food poisoning is re‐ sponsible for a significant number of health facility visits and hospitalisations as well as deaths. Moreover, several long-term effects such as cancers and other conditions af‐ fecting children, pregnant women and the elderly have been also reported.

To conclude, food poisoning is one of the major causes of morbidity in Africa. Several risk factors influence its occurrence. It is recommended that the control systems that are lacking should be instituted and that public education should be conducted so that hygienic and safe food handling practices can be implemented. Moreover, the preservation of the sources of food, namely the fauna and flora ecosystems, as well as environmental media, namely air, soil and water, should be considered not only as a necessity but as a shared responsibility that each human being should accept every day in the way he or she lives, make decisions and eat.

**Keywords:** Food poisoning, risk factors, Africa

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
