The City of Johannesburg hosted a successful listeriosis awareness and training session for informal traders at the Ferndale Recreation Centre in Randburg on 19 March.
About 60 informal traders, from the Randburg and Rosebank areas, gathered for an opportunity to learn about safe food handling practices in order to prevent and combat the spread of listeriosis from the City’s environmental health practitioners.
Johannesburg MMC for health Dr Mpho Phalatse said that as of 6 March, a total of 960 listeriosis cases had been reported across the country, with Gauteng reporting 565 cases and 181 deaths so far.
#ListeriosisAwareness For informal traders in Ferndale ^NB https://t.co/m8A74BiZrB
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) March 19, 2018
The purpose of the training session was meant to educate traders on proper food handling and food hygiene.
Phalatse said informal traders play a crucial role in contributing to the City’s economy and their participation in health education programmes are vital.
“Prevention is better than cure. And we recognise that they are an important component of the prevention strategy,” she said. “That is why it is important for us to train them so that they can adhere to food safety practices and in return protect their customers too.”
The training session started out with a detailed presentation defining what listeriosis is, what causes it, how it is contracted, as well as prevention strategies followed by a question and answer session.
The attendees broke away into focus groups where traders had an opportunity to ask questions for clarity in their language of choice.
Phalatse said the training session was a great step in containing the outbreak.
She added, “I have had feedback from a few informal traders and they are very grateful that we came out. These are business people that left their businesses to come and be empowered because they genuinely care about customers they serve… It was really great how they are willing to work with us.”
#ListeriosisAwareness Ward Councillor @DavidCOJ102 welcoming informal traders and encouraging everyone to share information with their counterparts ^NB pic.twitter.com/p4kG7aqJkP
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) March 19, 2018
Ward 102 councillor David Potter, who contributed to the presentation added, “The City of Joburg is at the forefront of community engagement with regards to the listeriosis outbreak.
Thank you to the Environmental Health Department for bringing valuable and practical advice to the Region B community.”
The training session will be conducted for informal food traders in other regions.
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