Food Standards Australia New Zealand

Zoonotic neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) remain a substantial but under-recognised source of human morbidity and economic concern in the Greater Mekong Subregion, particularly in settings characterised by close human-animal interaction. This article represents a narrative synthesis of zoonotic disease research conducted in Laos and Cambodia between 2000 and 2025. The review integrates published literature with findings from long-term surveillance programmes conducted by the authors and collaborating institutions in Laos, with comparative insights from Cambodia, to examine the presence, distribution, diversity, and drivers of zoonotic pathogens at the human-animal interface. Evidence demonstrates the endemic presence of a wide range of parasitic, bacterial, and viral zoonoses, including Taenia solium, Trichinella spp., Streptococcus suis, rickettsial infections, melioidosis, hepatitis E virus, and Japanese encephalitis virus. Some of these pathogens are sustained within smallholder livestock systems, informal slaughter, farming practises, food networks, and wet market environments, where limited diagnostic capacity and fragmented surveillance obscure true disease presence. Surveillance innovations, including abattoir-based sampling, cross-sectoral serological studies, environmental surveillance approaches, and molecular diagnostic tools, have improved pathogen detection but have also highlighted persistent structural and behavioural barriers to control. Socio-cultural practices, occupational exposure, wildlife trade, and economic dependencies reinforce transmission dynamics, indicating that biomedical interventions alone are insufficient. Instead, zoonotic disease persistence reflects the interaction of livestock production systems, environmental conditions, diagnostic limitations, and entrenched human behaviours. This review emphasises the need for integrated One Health approaches that combine strengthened surveillance, improved diagnostics, behavioural interventions, and regional collaboration. Addressing zoonotic NTDs in Laos and Cambodia requires coordinated strategies that account for both biological complexity and socio-economic context to achieve sustainable disease control and improved public health outcomes.

National food composition databases are essential for data quality and reliability in dietary monitoring, nutrition research, and policy. Nevertheless, they face growing challenges from rapidly evolving food markets, new data demands, and limited analytical resources. This paper summarizes outcomes of a preconference workshop at ICDAM 2025 that brought together experts from seven countries to share experiences in developing and maintaining databases. Presentations highlighted strategies to keep databases fit for purpose, including standardized and harmonized food descriptions, inclusion of biodiversity and regional foods; maintaining strong analytical anchors with continuous updates; systematic handling of missing values (recipe calculations, preparation factors, and imputation), and AI-based linking of branded with generic foods to address nutrient gaps and capture market changes. These developments also underline the value of food composition databases: supporting national dietary surveys, monitoring reformulation, informing front-of-pack labeling, and enabling evaluation of nutrition policies. Breakout discussions emphasized challenges such as resource constraints and reliance on secondary data, as well as demands for new data types beyond traditional nutrients, alongside opportunities in branded data, automation, FAIR data standards, and harmonization. The workshop concluded that sustained investment, modernized infrastructures, and collaborative governance are critical to ensure food composition databases remain robust, policy-relevant, and globally interoperable.

Transboundary animal and emerging infectious diseases (TADs, EIDs) threaten livestock health and production, food security, and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia (SEA). Outbreaks of TADs, including foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), classical swine fever (CSF), African swine fever (ASF), and lumpy skin disease (LSD), highlight ongoing risks associated with informal animal movement and cross-border trade. We reviewed four decades of research from Thailand, Lao PDR, and Cambodia in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) to track the evolution of diagnostics, surveillance, and policies for these diseases. Incremental investments in laboratory diagnostics, epidemiology, abattoir surveillance, and field health measures were integrated into disease control strategies by adaptation to resource-limited, endemic settings and shaped by regional collaboration, notably through the SEA, China and Mongolia FMD (SEACFMD) campaign. Key achievements include establishing disease prevalence baselines, improving understanding of virus dynamics, identifying local disease risk factors, identifying veterinary service gaps, and rapidly increasing diagnostic and response capacity during outbreaks. Evidence from the studies reviewed suggests that integrating diagnostics with field surveillance, socioeconomic information, and regional coordination can provide actionable insights for disease control, although implementation and effectiveness have varied between diseases, countries, and time periods. This narrative review suggests that sustainable control requires long-term adaptive development of diagnostics, surveillance, and policy translation while recognising persistent heterogeneity in veterinary capacity, surveillance coverage, and biosecurity across the region. This review is based on a narrative synthesis of published literature, institutional reports, and programme experience.

Foodborne disease and its sequelae exert a significant cost on Australia through health care costs, lost productivity, and occasional fatal illness. While estimating the cost of illness for all foodborne pathogens or for specific pathogens has value in quantifying this disease burden, it is also informative to estimate costs by food commodity and to identify priority areas for improving food safety. We combined a cost of illness model for foodborne illness in Australia with an expert elicitation of the food commodities associated with illness for key pathogens. The total cost of the six modeled pathogens was 721 million (June 2023 AUD), with campylobacteriosis having the greatest overall cost (AUD 420 million). Across food categories, AUD 328 million was attributed to poultry, AUD 107 million to vegetables, while dairy, beef, and pork each had costs over AUD 55 million. Strong associations were found between Campylobacter and poultry (69% of campylobacteriosis cases attributed to poultry) and Yersinia and pork (54% of yersiniosis cases attributed to pork). This study highlights poultry as a key cause of foodborne illness in Australia, responsible for almost half of the total costs due to Campylobacter, non-typhoidal Salmonella, Yersinia enterocolitica, Listeria monocytogenes, and Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli.

Monitoring the food supply including composition and what people are eating is an important aspect of maintaining public health and safety. The Food Composition Program at Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is responsible for generating, compiling and publishing data on the nutrient content of Australian foods to support FSANZ standards development work and monitoring activities. This work also supports broader Government public health policies and initiatives such as National Nutrition Surveys, Front of Pack labelling and reformulation. Having robust up to date food composition and dietary intake data that represents the current food supply and consumption patterns provides the strong evidence base needed to support FSANZ activities(1). FSANZ has been working with the Australian Bureau of Statistics since 2019 to support their work on the 2023 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (NNPAS)(2). Our role has been to assist in customising the survey instrument Intake24 used to collect the 24-hour recall data from the NNPAS and to generate the datasets required to allow food, dietary supplement and nutrient intakes to be estimated from the survey and enable reporting against the Australian Dietary Guidelines. This presentation will discuss FSANZ role in monitoring foods and healthy diets in Australia, with a particular focus on the methods and tools for generating and reporting data for the 2023 NNPAS.