Under the auspices of his Royal Highness Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the Vice President of Ministers Council, the Minister of Defense and Aviation, the General Inspector and the Chairman of the SFDA Board of Directors, the SFDA organizes the first national campaign for food safety awareness entitled "No for Food Poisoning", inaugurated by his royal highness Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, the Minister of Interior and the SFDA Board of Directors member, on Tuesday 28-10-1429H lasting one week. On this occasion, his Excellency Dr. Mohammed bin Ahmed Alkanhal, the acting vice president of the SFDA, declared that the SFDA organizes this campaign in regard to the big influence of food on human health and life and for the intensive concern of the government towards citizens health; for this, the Ministers Council decree no (m\6) dated on 25-1-1427H, has been issued to approve the SFDA system to carry the responsibility of monitoring and controlling food, drug and medical devices as well as raising the awareness level of food safety within the Saudi community.
His Excellency, the acting vice president of the SFDA stated that the SFDA had had several educational symposiums, activities and campaigns in food, drug and medical devices sectors, supported by the government of the Two Holy Mosques.
From his part, Dr. Ibraheem bin Saad Almuhaize, the vice executive president of food affairs, clarified that the campaign aims to educate people about the importance of preventing food poisoning, spread awareness related to food safety, shed lights on wrong habits and manners leading to poisoning and explain how to prevent them as well as introducing the SFDA as a controlling authority participates in national prosperity and serves the community in field of health and food safety in particular.
Dr. Almuhaize stated that the campaign is characterized by the diversity and multiplicity of activities and events such as: publications which are distributed all over the Kingdom, as more than 6000.000 (six million) one has been published including brochures, posters and pamphlets for children. In addition, about 1000 way billboards will be distributed on the Kingdom, beside making television and broadcast programs as well as scientific symposiums and lectures, publishing journalistic articles and advertisements, sending mobile messages about the campaign, establishing an interactive electronic website to display all activities and messages of the campaign through the internet. Moreover, the SFDA set a competition aims to identify basic principles of food safety through the campaign website and assigned encouraging rewards.
Dr. Almuhaize expressed his gratitude to participants whom supported the campaign, especially government authorities like: the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, Ministry of interior, the National Guard, Ministry of Municipality and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, hospitals and Saudi universities.