The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has suspended the operations of Yellow Sisi Waakye joint after a suspected foodborne disease outbreak affected over 50 people.
The authority says it a received notification through its Food Safety Alert System on Sunday, 22nd January 2023, on a suspected foodborne disease outbreak reported to have occurred at Oyibi, within the Adenta Municipality, in the Greater Accra Region.
Operation of the joint has been halted until measures have been put in place to ensure that their activities are brought into compliance to prevent future occurrence.
In a statement by the FDA, a joint investigation with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) started immediately in line with the Food Safety Emergency Response Plan.
“Investigations revealed that a total of fifty-three (53) people experienced symptoms of foodborne disease after consuming waakye or plain rice and tomato stew from a food vendor called Yellow Sisi located at Bush Canteen, a suburb of Oyibi. So far one (1) person has been reported dead, but the exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed”.
Further, it said environmental assessment of the food preparation site located at Malejor and three other vending sites at Bush Canteen, Prison Joint and Sharp Curve Joint “revealed poor food handling practices which could have resulted in the contamination of the food, leading to the foodborne disease outbreak.”
In November 2021, the FDA launched its Street Food Vending Scheme in conjunction with the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. The Scheme, which was developed under the FAO Healthy Street Food Incentive Project, aims at issuing compliant vendors with a Street Food Vending Permit.
They therefore advised consumers to insist on seeing these permits in their favourite eateries before patronizing their services.
“We strongly urge street food vendors to apply for the Permit”, the authority said.
Below is the full statement by the FDA
