Large Scale Food Preparation Not Safe

As almost 10 million people in offices, wedding places and schools use massive amounts of food everyday, the sanitary system and management they rely on has lots of problems causing health risks.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare on May 11 announced that out of 1,385 food poisoning patients this year, 83 percent among them turned out to be infected by group food supplies.
The number of patients was only 19 persons in 1990, but has increased dramatically to 48 people already this year.
Official food poisoning patients registered by the ministry totalled 928 persons in 1998, however, actual patients who were treated by pharmacies or private hospitals totalled 139,200.
This year has started out as a bad one for food poisoning as early warm temperatures caught large food preparation companies by surprise combined with their inadequate facilities and poor hygienic and food preparation standards. In most cases the food preparation companies lack even the most basic refrigeration systems.
Doctor Oh Myong Don from Seoul National University said, 'The government should allot more budget and personnel for preventing massive food poisoning.'
Hwashik Bong : trojans@joongang.co.kr