ILRI pork safety project holds mid-term review in Vietnam

The PigRisk project team during the March 2016 mid-term review meeting (photo credit: ILRI/Fred Unger).

In March 2016 the PigRisk project, which focuses on food safety and pork value chains, held its mid-term review. This five-year project (2012–2017) aims to improve the livelihoods of rural and urban poor in Vietnam by creating better opportunities and incomes from pig value chains as a result of reduced risks associated with pork-borne diseases. The project is led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

The review highlighted significant achievements of the project including the development of a ‘cost of disease’ model and quantitative microbial risk assessment (QRMA) for Salmonella in consumers. This was the first time that these models had been used for food safety in Vietnam and they revealed the high economic cost to consumers from Salmonella-induced diarrheoa, whose treatment…