The issue of food poisoning is back on the table, forcing people to think twice about what and where they eat. Matt Blackwell and Deeba Hasan report
Last month, 20 Omanis were taken ill after they ate contaminated food at a restaurant in Saham. What started with stomach discomfort, soon progressed to continuous vomiting and diarrhoea, until the sufferers had no choice but to turn to hospital for further treatment.
While a local newspaper reported shortly after this incident that cases related to food poisoning are “not that common” in Oman, a bit of digging by Y suggests otherwise. Last year, 60 people became ill after eating tainted food at restaurants around the country, while the year before more than 360 people fell victim to food poisoning. And these are just the reported cases.
Thankfully, none of the cases of food poisoning in Oman have caused deaths over recent years, although the figures do make for alarming reading.
Food-borne illnesses are on the increase around the globe according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The latest worldwide data available was released in April this year and revealed that 582 million cases of 22 different food-borne diseases were experienced in 2010, which led to 351,000 deaths. A full report is set to follow next month, but in the meantime, the implications for Oman could be more than a few upset stomachs.
The fact is that poor standards regarding food safety could actually damage the Sultanate’s tourism industry, a sector that is being heavily relied on to pull in extra income in light of falling oil prices and a ballooning national deficit.
“In some cases, foreign tour companies will employ food safety experts and send them to countries like Oman to assess standards in order for them to verify whether they want to send their tourists,” says Rob MacLean, principal of Oman’s National Hospitality Institute (NHI). “A tour company could quite easily turn around and say that they would no longer send tourists to a particular resort or country based on the reports they get back.”
To ensure such a fate does not befall Oman, the NHI has been working to increase food safety standards in the Sultanate since 1997, providing internationally recognised food safety certification up to level four as well as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) training. After starting the training part-time 18 years ago, it has grown to become a significant part of the NHI’s business and MacLean believes that this is proof that hygiene, health and safety are being given increased importance by food establishments in Oman. “Originally, we delivered training, but then we found that a lot of people were then going back to their companies and there were no systems in place. So because of this, we now put food safety management systems into properties,” he says.
“We have put them into several four and five-star hotels as well as restaurant chains. We are training people to international standards, we install food safety management systems and we also go back and complete auditing and inspections.”
That said, there is still a worryingly high amount of cases in the Sultanate. One small restaurant in Muscat was guilty of turning off the power overnight to save money, leaving the contents of the freezers to defrost, before switching it all back on and refreezing the next morning. Stories like this show that awareness and knowledge of food safety just isn’t there yet.
Oman has a mixture of both old and new properties, but just because a place is new or belongs to a large five-star hotel, it doesn’t mean it’s automatically safe. The fact is, the bigger the operation, the more difficult the smaller aspects are to control. For instance, the site may be split over several locations, there are more people to organise and employing staff from around the world raises language barrier issues.
Equally though, the smaller-scale restaurants and coffee shops can also present dangers from lack of hygiene knowledge to downright disregard for regulations. The problem here is that when the establishment is smaller, the staff are forced to multi-task, which means they could be the cleaner one minute and the chef the next, handling food without having washed their hands between duties.
Food regulations exist in Oman and can be found online at the website of the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources (MRMWR), but according to one source within the industry, they are not very explicit and do not go far enough. It falls to the Muscat Municipality to conduct inspections and pull up underperforming establishments, but with hundreds of restaurants registered in Muscat alone, monitoring all the outlets that serve food can be a difficult task. “Muscat Municipality will send inspectors round on a regular basis, but they’re not always as thorough as they should be and they can be inconsistent. I’ve known of one inspector to go to a five-star hotel and pick them up on the smallest of things, while another inspector went back the next month and said something completely different,” the source tells Y.
“What’s more is that you can come out of that hotel, drive five minutes down the road and pass a shawarma stand that nobody says anything to. If you look at the levels of danger there, one is clearly higher.”
Y reached out to the Muscat Municipality for comment on our story and was assured we would be given an interview, although the Municipality were not able to schedule one by the time we went to print.
Mesud is the manager of a popular beachside restaurant in Muscat who spoke to Y. He says Municipality checks can sometimes be few and far between. “There are times when they come four or five times within one month and then there are months that they don’t come at all. There is no fixed amount of visits, it seems they appear randomly. You never really know,” he says.
“The main things the inspection teams check is that the food is stored correctly and safely, the overall cleanliness and whether all the machines work. If there is any problem, they will give a notice of warning and then return after a week or two to check whether the problem is solved. If not, the restaurant will pay a fine.” But the question remains: is a fine – normally a few hundred rials – enough to force the owner of a business to change his ways and adopt new practices, or do stricter measures need to be implemented?
Although Mesud’s restaurant has only ever received one fine in its five years of business (for a faulty electrical insect killer), he says that some of his fellow Muscat-based restaurateurs are not so diligent with their cleanliness and there are places where he deems the food inedible.
Some of the most common faults in restaurants are temperature control, particularly when dealing with buffets; lack of care with deliveries, which are sometimes left out for a long time; not checking the standard of food when it comes in; cross contamination between food, surfaces and equipment, undercooking of food, defrosting and refreezing and even seemingly basic hygiene points like washing hands.
One Muscat resident who lives in Qurum had to wait two hours for his food delivery to arrive recently. After suffering food poisoning, he has been put off pizza and is reluctant to order food for delivery ever again. “Making deliveries at 10pm at night in 40-degree heat after being stuck in traffic for half an hour or more does make you wonder,” he says.
Dr Hari Prasad, a general practitioner at Badr Al Samaa hospital in Ruwi, tells Y he sees three to four instances of food poisoning every day. “The cases increase with summer, but it can be an issue all year round because it’s hot here most of the time,” the GP says. “Normally, patients can take medications at home, but when it gets serious and they start vomiting, they need to consult a doctor. Sometimes we get extreme cases at our hospital.
“To avoid food poisoning, I would recommend that people eat at a good restaurant once during a week, rather than eating at small coffee shops or restaurants every day.”
It seems that Omanis are also becoming wise to this advice and paying more heed to the cleanliness of the establishments that they choose to give their business. “Me and my friends go on a lot of weekend trips, often into the Interior,” says Said. “While I will generally eat anywhere, a lot of my friends have become more wary recently after everything that has been in the news and will not eat at roadside cafés and coffee shops any more.”
After the number of Oman’s food poisoning cases hit triple figures in 2013, it was announced that the MRMWR would be increasing the amount of inspections and the Council of Ministers gave approval for the establishment of a National Food Quality and Safety Centre, which is due to begin operations later this year.
The centre aims to bring all food inspection and regulatory bodies under one umbrella and will test imported and locally produced food items for contaminants, according to HE Hamad al Gharibi, the Undersecretary for Regional Municipalities Affairs at the MRMWR.
And in the wake of last year’s food poisoning cases, an official at the Public Authority for Consumer Protection told local media that the New Consumer Act aimed to rein in instances of restaurants flouting the rules by increasing the penalties dished out for violations, but to date only three workers in Ibri have been landed with a jail sentence (see right), with nominal fines being the norm.
The NHI has also worked with Muscat Municipality on a Ministry of Manpower-endorsed initiative, coming up with a 50-hour mandatory training programme for anyone supervising a coffee shop or food outlet.
The idea is that wherever there is food and drink being consumed by the public, the manager should have a minimum amount of training or risk having their food licence revoked. The NHI is also in the process of introducing stickers for those establishments that meet food hygiene and safety standards.
When it comes to food safety, there are standards in place in Muscat and around Oman and the authorities are starting to clamp down on rogue restaurants and enforcing a more stringent system of checks, but change takes time and it seems that unsuspecting diners may have to suffer a few more upset stomachs before all of Oman’s eateries get a full clean bill of health.
Food Poisoning Facts:
What is food poisoning?
Food poisoning is an illness caused by food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites or toxins. Most people recover after a few days, but hospital treatment is required sometimes and some cases can be fatal.
What causes food poisoning?
In the majority of food poisoning cases, it’s gastroenteritis – an irritation of the stomach and intestines.
Typically caused by bacteria (such as salmonella, E. coli, or campylobacter) or a virus (like norovirus).
Food poisoning generally comes from food you have ingested, however, you can also contract gastroenteritis from coming in contact with an infected person who has not washed their hands.
Symptoms:
The signs of food poisoning can range from very mild (a passing stomach ache) to severe (fever and non-stop diarrhoea). Depending on which bug you’ve picked up, symptoms start in as little as eight hours, but you may not see the effects for up to two weeks.
You might have:
Nausea
Abdominal pain
Low fever
Diarrhoea
Vomiting
Cramps
Bloating
How to treat food poisoning:
DON’T take an over-the-counter anti-diarrhoea drug without a doctor’s permission. Your body is trying to expel the bugs that are making you sick, and you don’t want to interfere with the natural healing process.
DO stay hydrated. You’ll need to replenish all the fluids you’re losing to avoid serious dehydration. Sip electrolyte-rich liquids, like coconut water. If you’re keeping down fluids, slowly introduce easy-to-digest foods, like bananas, rice and toast.
If you’re a healthy adult with a solid immune system, most bouts of food poisoning will pass on their own after a couple of days. In general, there’s nothing you can do to speed the healing. The best thing is to rehydrate and rest.
All food poisoning cases – minor or major – should be reported within 24 hours to the regional health authorities.
Source: news.health.com
Oman’s Food Poisoning Timeline:
January 2013: 300 PDO employees are affected by food poisoning at the Qarn Alam Permanent Accommodation Camp in central Oman, 400km from Muscat. The Ministry of Health sends a team to investigate the issue.
May 2013: A World Health Organization mission visits Oman to support the Food Poisoning Workshop organised by The College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences at Sultan Qaboos University. The aim is to raise awareness and update about emerging pathogens and identification techniques.
August 2013: More than 60 members of a wedding party in Rustaq fall ill in a mass food poisoning. The source of the contaminated food is believed to be a local bakery, which is then investigated by the Ministry of Health’s Communicable Diseases Control and Surveillance Department.
September 2013: The Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources announce that they plan to increase the number of health inspections to prevent cases of food poisoning.
April 2014: 20 fall ill after having breakfast at a restaurant in the Qurum area. Following complaints, the restaurant is investigated by Muscat Municipality, but is found to be adhering to all health and safety norms.
August 2014: A restaurant in Ibri is forced to close when 40 people fall ill in a week after eating at there. The worst affected require three days of hospital treatment.
December 2014: Three people working in the Ibri restaurant are fined in excess of RO1,000 and given a one-year jail term. The court also ordered that the three accused are to be deported.
August 2015: 20 Omanis are taken ill after eating contaminated food at a restaurant in Saham, some requiring hospital treatment. Despite the incident, the restaurant remains open.
The Training Available:
Level 1 Food Safety
Suitable for: New employees with minimal or no prior food safety knowledge.
Assessment: Multi-choice examination
Duration: Six hours (one day)
Level 2 Food Safety
Suitable for: Anyone working in catering where food is prepared, cooked and handled.
Assessment: Multi-choice examination
Duration: 12 hours (two days)
Level 3 Food Safety
Suitable for: Managers and supervisors. Particularly relevant for those who have to develop and monitor a HACCP based procedure system.
Assessment: Multi-choice examination
Duration: 21 hours (3 ½ days)
Level 4 Food Safety
Suitable for: Managers, supervisors and senior hygiene personnel.
Assessment: Assignment and examination
Duration: Five days
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