Unsafe food causes many acute and life-long diseases, ranging from diarrhoeal diseases to various forms of cancer. WHO estimates that foodborne and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases taken together kill about 2.2 million people annually, 1.9 million of them children.

Foodborne diseases and threats to food safety constitute a growing public health problem and WHO's mission is to assist Member States to strengthen their programmes for improving the safety of food all the way from production to final consumption.

In May 2010 the World Health Assembly approved a new resolution on food safety: Advancing food safety initiatives (WHA63.3). This resolution will be used to update the current WHO Global Strategy for Food Safety.

• More about the work of WHO in food safety.