Food safety violations in Hanoi sharply increases in 2017

• Food Safety Week for Lunar New Year 2018 kicked off
• MOIT launches campaign to collect signature for food safety
• Health Ministry proposes reducing food safety red tape
• Six food safety inspection teams for Mid-Autumn Festival to be established

Of the violators, more than 7,200 units had to pay fines exceeding a total of 37 billion VND (1.6 million USD) and had their unsafe food destroyed. In 2016, the city examined more than 100,000 units, detected violations at about 16,000 units and collected fines of about 28 billion VND.

More than 22,500 units among 110,930 units examined in Hanoi were found to have violated food safety regulations in 2017 by inspectors.

The report also revealed that, the city witnessed 11 methanol poisoning cases with 37 people involved in 2017. Ten of the 37 people died of methanol poisoning or alcohol intoxication.

During a month-long campaign against methanol poisoning starting in mid-March, the health department tested more than 3,550 samples of alcohol across the city. After testing 112 samples, at least 5 samples were found to have methanol concentration beyond permitted levels.

The campaign was part of the city’s response to an increase in cases of methanol poisoning. Other responses included programmes to promote supply chains of safe food and projects to improve management capacity in food safety.

The department plans to tighten inspections, especially unannounced ones on food producers and traders, and to strictly punish violators during the country's upcoming Tet holiday.