Our WHO Collaborating Centre for Risk Assessment of Pathogens in Food and Water is committed to supporting the WHO and its member states by providing technical guidance and capacity building in the critical field of microbial food and water safety. We do this by:

• Ensuring Safe and Healthy Food: The WHO Collaborating Centre is a leader in the field of microbial food safety, with extensive expertise in detecting harmful parasites, viruses, bacteria, and faecal indicators in food.
• Protecting Water Sources: The WHO Collaborating Centre is dedicated to ensuring the safety of our water supply, with extensive expertise in the detection of harmful parasites, viruses, bacteria, and faecal indicators in all types of water, including drinking water, surface water, groundwater, recreational water, and wastewater.
• Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: The WHO Collaborating Centre is at the forefront of the battle against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), with deep expertise on the transmission of AMR from humans and animals through food and the environment. Our extensive knowledge of the detection and characterisation of AMR bacteria, genes, and residues in food and environmental samples allows us to track and tackle this growing threat to public health effectively.
• Risk Assessment and Prevention: The WHO Collaborating Centre is equipped with a robust skill set in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, allowing us to accurately assess and estimate the public health risk from exposure to harmful pathogens in food and water. We also support the implementation of Water Safety Planning, Sanitation Safety Planning, and risk-based surveillance.

• Protecting Public Health: Safe water and food are crucial to maintaining good health, but microbial hazards such as Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, Rotavirus, Ebola virus, SARS-CoV-2, and antimicrobial resistance often threaten them. Identifying and assessing these risks is crucial, and that is where our WHO Collaborating Centre comes in. With extensive experience in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA), we are equipped to provide valuable technical support to the WHO Headquarters, WHO Europe, and JEMRA, working to keep our communities healthy and safe from food and water-borne pathogens.

Coordination WHO Collaborating Centre

Professor Ana Maria de Roda Husman of RIVM’s Centre for Infectious Disease Control coordinates the WHO Collaborating Centre for Risk assessment of pathogens in Food and Water.