No fewer than 15 million people die annually due to the consumption of unsafe food, while about 866 million fall I’ll due to the same thing, the World Health Organization, WHO, said on Thursday.
The UN health agency said children under the age of five are among the hardest hit, facing nearly three times the risk of illness from unsafe food compared to older children and adults.
Although they make up only nine per cent of the world’s population, young children account for almost one-third of all foodborne disease cases globally, particularly severe diarrhoeal infections that can prove fatal.
WHO said exposure to dangerous chemicals such as lead, methylmercury and inorganic arsenic in food is also causing devastating long-term health consequences, including brain damage, developmental disorders, heart disease and cancers.
The report revealed that biological hazards such as bacteria, viruses and parasites were responsible for about 860 million illnesses in 2021, while chemical contamination accounted for 73 per cent of deaths linked to unsafe food.
According to the agency, inorganic arsenic was responsible for 42 per cent of chemical-related deaths, while lead accounted for 31 per cent.
WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the findings as alarming, saying governments now have clearer evidence of the scale of the crisis.
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“Food safety is not an abstract issue, it touches every meal, every family, every day. Unsafe food has always been a major public health concern, but until now we lacked the bigger picture of its staggering human and economic toll,” he said.
“For the first time, countries have their own data to see where the burden is highest. With that knowledge, governments can prioritise the actions needed to protect people’s health.”
The organization said the burden of foodborne disease remains heaviest in Africa and South-East Asia, where poor sanitation, weak food safety systems and limited healthcare access continue to worsen exposure risks.
Together, both regions account for nearly three-quarters of global foodborne illnesses and 60 per cent of deaths linked to contaminated food.
WHO technical officer for food safety and senior author of the report published in The Lancet Global Health, Yuki Minato, warned that climate change and antimicrobial resistance are compounding the crisis.
“This report is a wake up call, but also a roadmap. The data show that foodborne diseases are not only persistent but are being made worse by climate change, which increases contamination risks, and by antimicrobial resistance, which makes infections harder to treat,” Minato said.
“We cannot tackle these threats alone. A One Health approach, integrating human, animal, plant, and environmental health – is essential.”
WHO also disclosed that foodborne diseases caused an estimated $310bn in lost productivity globally in 2021 due to illness-related absence from work. When adjusted for cost-of-living differences across countries, the economic losses rose to $647bn.
The report assessed 42 major foodborne hazards across 194 countries between 2000 and 2021, expanding previous estimates to include newer threats such as heavy metals, rotavirus and the parasite responsible for Chagas disease.
WHO urged governments to tighten industrial regulations, improve agricultural practices, strengthen food surveillance systems and invest in clean water, sanitation and hygiene to reduce contamination risks.
The agency warned that delays in action would continue to cost lives, especially among children and vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries.