The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has urged the government to extend its environmental protection measures by banning single‑use plastics, in addition to the existing prohibition on styrofoam food packaging. The Association emphasized that such action would contribute to a more comprehensive approach to food safety.
Delivering the call at the Association’s 26th Annual Public Lecture in Koforidua, Eastern Region, last Friday, GMA President Professor Ernest Yorke warned that the continued use of styrofoam and disposable plastics in food packaging remains a major source of unsafe food in Ghana. He noted that this practice poses significant health risks, drives up disease incidence, and contributes to the rising national health budget.
The event, dubbed “Food Safety in Contemporary Ghana: Public Health Concerns for the Consumer which focus on Food Safety”, was attended by medical practitioners, heads of departments and agencies, religious leaders, staff of the security services, students from senior high schools, traditional rulers and members of the public.
Prof. Yorke said numerous factors were rendering food unsafe for consumption in recent times, indicating that these encompassed every stage of the food chain. He stated that the phenomenon started from food production, harvesting, transportation, processing, storage to final preparation, sale and consumption. He added that failure at any point along the chain could have profound consequences for public health.
Intervention
The Government, through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has begun phasing out styrofoam products. According to GMA President Professor Ernest Yorke, extending this initiative to include a ban on single‑use plastics would mark a significant intervention for both environmental protection and public health.
He explained that, if paired with affordable and sustainable alternatives, such a policy could strengthen waste collection systems, enhance recycling, expand public education, and improve enforcement of environmental regulations. Professor Yorke stressed that these measures hold the potential to curb plastic pollution and foster cleaner urban environments. “We believe the ban must be expanded to cover single‑use plastics in order to achieve a comprehensive solution,” he said.
Cold-chains
Prof. Yorke explained that contamination might occur long before food reached the consumer, and that poor agricultural practices, unsafe irrigation water, indiscriminate use of chemicals, inadequate storage, interrupted cold chains, poor hygiene during transportation, and unsafe food handling increased the risk of microbial and chemical contamination, which had been associated with Ghana and many other low and middle-income countries. These, he emphasised, contributed to food-borne diseases in such countries. He said food safety was not the sole responsibility of producers and regulators, and that consumers also had an important role to play.
Good decisions
Professor Ernest Yorke, President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), urged consumers to make informed choices about food safety—ranging from where meals are purchased, stored, and prepared, to how long cooked food is kept at room temperature, and even how packaged foods are disposed of. He emphasised that these decisions carry implications not only for individual health but also for community wellbeing.
Citing the recent floods in Accra and other parts of the country, Professor Yorke noted that environmental health and food safety have become inseparable. Floodwaters, he explained, often contaminate drinking water sources, food preparation areas, markets, and storage facilities. They also disrupt sanitation systems, spread faecal contamination, compromise refrigeration and cold‑chain systems during power outages, and create conditions conducive to outbreaks of diarrhoea, disease, and other food‑ and water‑borne infections.
He assured that healthcare professionals would continue to educate the public on food safety using evidence‑based information, while expressing hope that the lecture would generate practical recommendations to inform national policy, enhance consumer awareness, and strengthen collaboration among stakeholders. He argued that food safety must move beyond contamination control to confront the slow violence of diet-related diseases in an era of ultra-processed foods.
Nutrition transition
A Public Health Nutritionist at the University of Ghana, Prof. Amos Laar, stated that Ghana’s nutrition transition had made old boundaries unstable, adding that food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies now coexisted with obesity, hypertension, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Such conditions, he indicated, were treated in clinics and hospitals, but their origins were also upstream in the food environment, market, pricing, labelling, marketing, regulatory gaps, commercial power and everyday constraints that shaped consumer choice.
Prof. Laar said, given that some unsafe foods cause harm immediately while others cause harm silently, cumulatively, consumer protection must include protection from products, practices and policies that normalise excessive intake of health-harming ultra-processed foods.
Writer’s email
haruna.wunpini@\graphic.com.gh
