By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), have launched a public service announcements to support NAFDAC on transfats elimination in the country.
The launch of a series of Public Service Announcement (PSAs) was to prevail on the agency to intensify campaign on the health harms of trans fat, a food component that has been linked to more than half a million deaths per year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has made global trans fat elimination a priority, and has called on governments to enact mandatory measures to protect the public health from trans fat consumption.
At the launch held virtually, partners urged Nigerians to to stay away from Transfat to ensure healthy living.
Speaking, Akinbode Oluwafemi, executive director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), a Nigerian non-profit supporting a #TransfatFreeNigeria said, “We urge Nigerians to watch and share these PSAs, and support NAFDAC in eliminating a toxic chemical that leads to so much avoidable death and disease”.
Meanwhile, sustained high trans fat consumption increases bad cholesterol, lowers good cholesterol, and increases the risk of coronary heart disease, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive diseases.
It has been linked to heart attacks as well as 540,000 global deaths per year, including 1,261 in Nigeria, according to 2010 estimates.
“NAFDAC must swiftly finalize and enact strong, mandatory trans fat restrictions that are in line with recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO),” said Dr. Jerome Mafeni, a member of the board of directors of the Network for Health Equity and Development (NHED). WHO has called for the global elimination of industrially produced trans fat by 2023, and released the REPLACE action package to guide efforts at the country level.
“Without further action, trans fat will remain in many of the foods we all love to eat,” Dr. Mafeni cautioned. International experience shows that trans fat can easily be replaced with healthier alternatives in the baked, processed and packaged foods where it is most common, he added.
Currently, 29 countries have taken steps to limit trans fat in their food supplies.
The countries include; South Africa, India, Brazil, UK, USA, Canada, Turkey and Thailand.
